Day of the dead

One of the themes I have been exploring in the past year or so is based on the Mexican festival ‘Día de los Muertos’ or ‘Day of the Dead’, a celebration where you give sugar skulls to your friends with their names so "they can eat their own death". Grinning skulls are usually associated with death but they can mean something else. To ancient Mexicans, life was a dream and only in death did they become truly awake. Death is transcendence, transformation and resurrection.

 I was also very struck by many of the early American settler's grave stones that had carved depictions of winged skulls, skeletons, and funerary urns surrounded by weeping willow trees.

Together these things became inseparable in my head and so a whole series was born, exploring this interesting dichotomy of life and death, sweetness and macabre.
Below are some of the lino prints that started the journey.

                                                                   Dead on Time

                                                                      Dead Head Fred

I got so excited about the whole concept. It just grew and grew in my head. I then decided that paper was just to flat and there needed to be some sort of 3D aspect to the skulls so I transferred the whole thing to China using on glaze china paints. The following are all hand drawn with china paints using a fine nibbed pen. No decals or transfers.

Then of course I decided that it all needed to be a whole lot bigger with a much larger more complex image ...

This piece is 2 ft 2" by 1 1/2 ft. It took about 5 days to complete.

This wasn't the end point I had more I wanted to develop with this idea ........

I wanted to MORTIFY. 

But that's a story for tomorrows blog post ... you will just have to come back tomorrow to see what happens....