Just picked up last weeks prints from the print shop. Absolutely smashed it on a couple of these. Very happy indeed with the progress. Unfortunately now I’ve got a long break before I can get back in the studio so gotta hope that the ole mojo sticks around. Check em out…
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Thats another limited edition of original inkings sorted. 10 copies, 1 wedding gift and 1 artists’ proof (A/P) for me. Very much enjoying inking these pics. Its quite a challenge as for some reason I’ve taken to using a broken dip-pen nib which makes it all the more satisfying completing a finished picture. I don’t think anyone other than me will notice any difference, but it just stops everything looking that little bit too slick. It forces mistakes and that makes it interesting! (masochist…)
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So this is a bit of a departure from what I’ve been doing recently and a bit of a new direction – if you can call rocking it old school a new direction. I’ve been itching to have a crack at dip pen and ink work for a while now so I decided to fire up the old lightbox and ink a couple of pics from my sketchbooks. Then I decided to test whether its still fun to ink the same drawing over and over again, just like in traditional 2D animation clean up. So I did. And it is. It was also nice opportunity to watch a lot of episodes of ‘bottom’ while I was at it. The outcome is a couple of nice wedding present prints and a limited edition of 10 original inkings of a splendid ‘Curious Head Worm’. Here’s pics – looky:
The next big thing on my mind is to go big! I want to get hold of the most massive canvasses I can get and basically do the same as the inkings but on a titanic scale. Big ass Cropley head worms and freaky life models 10 ft high! …but we’ll see how that goes.
Good session tonight, arm bloody hurts though – curse you booster jabs! Happy with what was produced. This is probably my last session… blimey, until September then. Bugger. Heh ho. Lots of time to work on inking editions (more on this tomorrow ;) exciting! Here’s the pics from tonight:
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Lots of stuff to post about this week, so I’ll keep it short and simple here. You can see from these 6 images that things certainly don’t always go to plan! I’m finding that the hit rate of good images from each plate is very low indeed. The idea of editions from these things just isnt entering the picture yet. I’m not sure if this is because I haven’t got the technique down pat yet, or whether its going to take a few attempts per plate to get the image I’m looking for. Either way, sure is going to be small run per plate!
Click thumbs below for full size images ;)
Settling in to a nice pattern of warm ups and etching at life class… been thinking about how to use dip pen and ink, but one thing at a time – plenty of mileage in drypoint and intaglio printing for the next few years! Here’s the pics from tonight :D
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No prints to pick up tonight so I thought I’d snap a few shots while I was at the studio…
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Its all gone a bit weird…! :D In the spirit of embracing the madness, this is worm country. Here be dragons. Well, worms. Here be worms. Head worms! glorious glistening, palpating mental appendages reaching for the cosmos. For your pleasure. I had a fun session tonight. Then I went to see the ace Dylan Shipley’s first solo exhibition at the newly moved Weapon of Choice gallery on the way home, which was great – nice Dyl, shit looking fly ;) props dude.
Gonna be fun pulling prints of these puppies ;) Click the thumbs for full screen versions…
Phew. So very tired. No print session tonight… but popped over to collect the prints that I rushed out last week. Very happy with a couple of them.
I’ve included one scan that messed up for fun – reminds of the promo for shlock horror nasty ‘human centipede’. Click thumbs below for larger images.
Owing to increased stag activity in the Wales area this weekend and the nearing matrimonial occasion, there will be intermittent breaks in the updating of this blog…
Dave Cropley 