Psalm 5: Using your friends

This was another new print in the series and one of the funnest yet.

I used our executive book keeper at work, Ryan, as my model. He was very gracious in posing for me, but I had to add the tie myself (I don't know if Ryan even owns a tie!). This is one of those prints where the image was in my head for quite a few weeks, so once I had the model the drawing, carving and printing went very quickly.

In my original drawing, I had the road going backwards at a straight angle, but once I got it on the lino-block, I decided the road should be curved or arched to add some depth. I also changed the sky, which originally was going to be just white, but I wanted more, more, more, so I added some fun by attempting to make the sky look like dawn, which fit the passage better. I used a dremmel tool, set at highest speed, and just used to or three different heads, carefully pushing it down into the block. This is also the first print where I incorporated the title into the actual print, hence the road sign.
Here is the capital letter and bottom image, using my favorite spare time scribble, vines wrapped around an image.
And the bottom art:





And here is the final piece. The text was the hardest part, I had to practice the calligraphy many, many times to get the whole thing to fit on one piece of paper. I usually practice by writing the chapter out completely on a scrap paper, then keep figuring out the layout and spacing necessary to get it all pleasing to the eye.