Making and Breaking a Narrative continued:

Considering the folk-lore of Magpies, I thought about the folk-art I have seen. The artist Mark Hearld came to mind, whose collages and prints I have a number of times:

His simple use of shapes and colours to capture British landscapes is very impressive. I wanted to be able to simplify the Magpie into it’s main shapes and colours in a similar fashion.

First I painted several sheets of cartridge paper in 4 main colours: black, white, blue and grey. I used thick lines of watercolour to create texture and differentiation in the block pages of paint:

I then cut the main shapes and forms of the Magpie out of the paper and assembled them:

Following this, I am currently creating a background for the Magpie which draws on ideas of death and the association of the Magpie with the Devil

One for Sorrow / Edward Cawood by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0