The woodblock diary of Alex Gillies…

Most prints I make for myself. Sometimes I do a couple for friends but the hardest are the ones I do for albums! I’m in a band, it’s only a small group and we do it cause it’s fun – end of story. We also pretty much do everything ourselves – in house  – including recording our music, putting on our own shows, doing all our own artwork and self-releasing our albums. It’s often easier and cheaper that way and we get to do as we damn well please with it all.
So last year we released an album called Real Pain Supernova. I did the artwork and wrote about it here. This time round I tried a lot of different things and themes but everyone in the band liked the recurring elements of the woodcut below. And so it became the basis of the next albums coverart…

…and this is the original print.

I’m really happy with how the illustration turned out. I spent a lot of time trying to place the drama and the pain of the action into the skin and tendons of the hand – that one blinding moment. I’d like to think it worked. As with everything where there are multiple voices, elements were changed, suggestions were put forward and everyone seemed happy when that became this:

The album is called The Golden Bridge and this will be its coverart. It will be coming out on vinyl and digital in two and half weeks time. We’ll start pre-selling the album this weekend. While there will be 250 copies of the album made on vinyl, chances are I will most likely only ever print two or three prints of the original woodcut. It’s nice to know however that what I made will make it to the far corners of the earth.

The album is going to be housed in a gatefold LP sleeve and another print of mine (below) will also adorn the inside on the album. As with the coverart, the end result has turned out a bit different to the original print below but I think it works nicely.

Usually that would be the end of it. But no, not this time, I decided that anyone who pre-orders my bands album will go into the draw to win a deluxe version of the album. So I’m amassing a whole bunch of extras to go along with the vinyl and yesterday I decided to encase it all in a special one off box. This meant going full circle and pulling the wood out again. Plywood coated with hardwood this time round to lighten the load.

I also recarved the coverart into the lid of the special box. Usually I only recarve an image because I mucked it up on the first try. Eitherway, I did this one in the negative to the first woodcut.

And there you have it. A customised woodcut all ready for one of the records – which should all arrive at my door in the coming days from the pressing plant. I love how the whole thing has ended up looking. Now I cross my fingers that folks will like the songs housed inside?