7AM starts and a drop of Guinness, sur twill be grand..

Decided i'm gonna be extra good and do at least one of these a week and be totes dedicated unlike last year....yeah we'll see how long that lasts!

So last week I was getting over my creative blockage and deciding on my idea, all before I could start the prep for my limestone.  This week was crazy and extremely hectic! My sleep was wittled down to the bare minimum, so lack of sleep coupled with being sick and casually pissed off meant Ange was not a nice person to be around this week!  Apologies to all who fell victim to my wrath ;) 

I narrowed down my idea to the structure of society: how the recession is forcing people to do things they wouldnt normally do.  Everyone has been affected by the current economic climate so I wanted to explore what can happen when a person is severely affected.  I looked at how people can lose their homes and are forced to live on the street; people becoming dependent on alcohol, drugs etc. leaving the country or even resorting to prostitution to help them get by.  I drew a series of quick sketches exploring each topic.

I then put together a quick composition of things that I thought best described my project.

But with the image there was a lot going on that wasnt needed.  It was almost as if there were 4 different stories happening which in one way would have been good but literal images on Lithographs, personally speaking, don't particularly look well.  So i zoomed in on the trolley and decided to look at it from that aspect.  The simple image of the trolley can symbolise many things, it acts as an everyday item for people doing their grocery shopping; shows routine; but on the flip side it could carry all of someone's most treasured possessions after they lost their home or even the bars can show a feeling of being trapped or jailed almost. 

Sooooo because i'm such a dedicated student and all that craic, I obviously needed to do research for the trolley side of things.  So off i went to Supervalu where i "borrowed" a trolley which is currently acting as a clothes drying unit in my room...a dead handy yoke! But it shall be returned...at some stage :P

The bar detail on the trolley was actually really interesting to photograph and to draw and they do make cool drawings.  They just take plenty of time and patience which I was running out of at 2AM.  

When I had all my trolley staring done, I then took the images and formed compositions with them.  After seeing how long it took to draw a simple drawing of the trolley I wanted something simple to print.  But the more detail and tone used in them obviously made them more interesting....so I of course ended up going with a tricky enough composition.

The "Chosen One"

So from here, I transferred the image on to my pre-prepared limestone where it was then treated with Rosin, Talc and an array of different strength Gum Arabics.

I used Litho crayons 1, 2 and 5 to create the image which took soooooo much time to do...it's an image I dont want to ever have to draw again.  Bent over a stone for hours at a time drawing made absolute shite of my back so this week is not ending well!  But the drop of Guinness for Arthur's Day helped a shmall bit ;)

Next week is the last week of Lithography before moving on to Intaglio.  Hopefully printing will get done on Wednesday so I can say goodbye to this loooong process of printing.

3 weeks in to 2nd year....Verdict - still unsure...