Category: Goddess

Goddess of Death tattoo design

Posted on Posted in art, Aztec, Birds, Day of the Dead, folk tales, Goddess, Illustration, WitchesTagged , , , , Leave a comment

This is an unused commission for a full arm piece, I don’t really do tattoo design, I turn it down a fair bit and I‘ve never consciously allowed my existing work to be used, (although I know there are few unofficial ones floating around). I’m not anti tattoo, far from it, I just think the possibility of something being lost in-translation is very high, and what I have drawn for one thing, being re-appropriated for another is a bit weird for me.
Why was it unused in the end? Well that‘s another story.

The client wanted a ‘Day of the Dead’ inspired piece, not content in just churning out some half assed cultural appropriation I did a some digging into the background of the holiday and learnt that it has it roots in an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess of death Mictecacihuatl, so its her I chose to represent. Dolores del Río inspired her face, and the rest of the composition is comprised of various other folkloric death related imagery.

DotD tat

The Moon Revisted, #2 progression.

Posted on Posted in art, fashion, folk tales, Goddess, Illustration, moon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Here’s the next stages in the progression of the Moon Revisited piece.

I’ve taken the concept out the sketch book on to A3 smooth cartridge paper, its in HB pencil and I’m inking with Unipin 0.3 and 0.1 pigment fine line pens.

Once inked I rub out any of the very heavy pencil lines and scan into Photoshop.

Its scanned at a very high resolution so when I scale it down to it will retain as much fine detail as possible.

From here I start the clean, copy and readjustment/refinement process.

jx

Poppy Witch

Posted on Posted in art, Art Nouveau, Fashion illustration, folk tales, Goddess, Illustration, Roger Dean, Uncategorized, WitchesLeave a comment

This Piece has been languishing in the digital equivalent of a dusty draw for about year after the client.. ahem..’changed their mind’ I think that’s the polite way of putting it.

So, I’ve dug her out and given her a bit of a re-model and a re-colour with something of a Roger Dean inspired pallet.

I think she deserves to see the light of day after everything she went through.

poppy witch

The Moon Revisited

Posted on Posted in art, fashion, Fashion illustration, folk tales, Goddess, Illustration, moon, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Adrian Carter Sheffield based audio wizard has done just an amazing remix/revision/total overhaul (part of the Sheffield Year of Making) of my sound piece that accompanied the buried moon film.

He’s taken what was simply a bare bones audio track of me reading the folk tale and turned it into an ambient bit of magic that unfolds beautifully to colour the world around the tale.

Its simply so fantastic that I felt it deserves a visual revisit of the work to match.

Here’s the site https://meetyourmakersite.wordpress.com/

Here’s the bandcamp https://adicarter.bandcamp.com/album/meet-your-makers

Here’s the prep sketch for the work in progress straight from my sketch book:

moon rv sk bp 1
The Moon revisited

 

Portfolio reviewing. Loki’s Children.

Posted on Posted in art, dogs, fashion, folk tales, Goddess, Illustration, Norse, wolfTagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Post Masters I’m currently reviewing and editing my portfolio, both the physical one and here online, Its a bit dry so for fun I thought for the next week or so or I’d post one of my older works, with a little explanation. or not as I see fit.

This is Loki’s Children, It features Hel, Ferir and Jörmungandr three of the Norse God Loki’s children.

They were punished and imprisoned (in one way or another) by Odin for what it was foretold they would do; not what they had done, just what they might do. I felt so sorry for the three of them ‘born bad’ as it were.
I thought of them clinging to one-another as they wait for Odins judgement.

jx

lokis children

Last week of Micro Show.

Posted on Posted in art, digital fabric print, exhibition, fashion, folk tales, Goddess, moon, tarot, wolf, woodlandLeave a comment

My micro show The Buried Moon, (which I was invited to extend the run of) will finally be drawing to a close this Saturday the 28th, so there’s just this week to catch it if you haven’t already. This week is also the last week to catch the rest of the Sheffield Hallam Degree Shows Including our Fashion Design one, there’s some really fantastic work on show so its really worth a visit, maybe even two 🙂bm central 1

 

jx

Shooting the Moon.

Posted on Posted in art, digital fabric print, exhibition, fashion, folk tales, Goddess, moon, moors, Rotoscoping, tarot, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After the fantastic news of my show extension, there was a slight panic, I had every intention of shooting the garments on a live model and furthering the narrative of the work  with a short photo essay, but how to shoot garments currently on display in a exhibition?

I was really not keen on displacing the exhibition half way through even for a day, due to the complex nature of the display, so the only alternative was to shoot the garments toiles.

So for just under the last two weeks Ive been reconstructing the toiles, as most had been unpicked to make the final patterns for the finished garments, I also had to recreate the jewelry and styling (wigs etc) components as most were one offs.

As the toiles were missing much of the finished details of the finals (the screen printed pomegranates for instance), the real challenge here was trying to create the impression of the finished garment with showing too much detail giving the game away as it were.

So on Sunday we took to the moors and woods to bring the Moon to life.

Going for long shots and heavy editing post production, I’m working towards creating the feel of both the exhibition and underling narrative.

Here’s a image in progress, it reminds me of the ‘Rotoscoping’ work of Ralph Bakshi.

My lovely and incredibly patient model for the shoot, is named after the Norse Goddess Freya, who rather uncannily has a correspondence with the full moon….

jx

moor top 3 ver 2 rough