This is the first of the five images that I have created for my major project, and one that (as you can see from my previous posts) I have already done work on. As I said in a recent post I made the decision to do my images as full lino cuts, instead of cobbling them together from different techniques. I think this way they have a more unified feel and I don’t have to worry about elements not working together etc.
So I decided that my old idea just wasn’t working with the bird as a central motif and the elements like the sword and the needle supporting it. I decided to go for a more organic composition with the sword as a central element that gives the image a straight, central line, to which the more organic forms of the birds heads intertwine and wrap around.
This was quite difficult and I would like to stress that the roughs included here are only a small collection of the drawings that I did for the image. I seemed to ahve a nice composition when I got to about 6 heads , then fitting the last 3 in was quite difficult. However I think this forced me to be quite creative in how I was going to fit them in, and choosing to have some of the heads as being severed not only added to the narrative of the image [as this is what happens in the story] but allowed the heads to fit in quite nicely.
I think the elements work well as the sword [while being a narrative element] also symbolises the strength and bravery of the main character and the small love heart in the hilt symbolises his love for the princess that he saves.
Equally I think the birds heads work well as I based them roughly on vultures to give them a horrible monstrous feel. Obviously there is always room for improvement and there is other ways I could have dealt with the necks wrapping around the sword etc, but on the whole I am happy with the result.
Images Copyright Dan Hodgkinson 2011
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