The woodblock diary of Alex Gillies…

Above is my flyer for a group exhibition I’m going to be a part of next month. I’ll be distributing these flyers around Brisbane over the coming week. For me it’s more than just a group art show it’s a chance to exhibit my art with some of my best friends and other friends whom I admire a lot. This is the second of these DIY art shows that my friend Mikel has put together and this time we’ve added an extra dose of Spaghetti Western to the mix.

We’ve made a facebook event page. Go HERE for all the details.

I’m planning on having either nine or ten new works in the show. Eight of them are finished. Two are half done at the time of writing this. A few images of prints are already out and about or elsewhere on this blog. Sometimes for me the actual woodblocks are very different to the finished prints.

This one is my update on the theme of Mexican bingo cards (of which E has a whole set). This block looks nothing like the finished print that I have completely hand coloured with Gouache.

…and then there’s this block. If you’ve seen ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ then this should be familiar to you. Still after a few goes at different versions of the print, I’m still yet to get anything that looks nearly as attractive as the woodblock itself. Luckily I still have a month to rectify this situation!

In other news, I’ve made another artist book and I think it looks pretty great. Make sure you check back in next week because I’ll post up all the details about it and how you can get yourself a copy. As with most things I do, I’m not a big edition kind of guy so I will only be making a limited number of books – I do hand make all of them myself and there’s only so many hours in the night. I do however have a plan this time so that no one misses out.

Lastly, I’ve still got a long list of art-related things I want to do and finish off but I think I’ll be taking the weekend off from art. The one photo I’m not going to post up is my swollen left wrist. An unfortunate side effect to too much carving over the last week or so. Stupid human body slowing me down.

Cheers,
Alex.