Design | O.R. Melling

Design

BLOCK & LINO PRINT

Long road crossing meseta

Templar Fort, Ponferrada

Bishop’s Palace, Astorga, Gaudi design

Long road crossing meseta

Templar Fort, Ponferrada

Bishop’s Palace, Astorga, Gaudi design

Tau crosses for monkish pilgrim walkers, Gaudi palace arches, pattern of the long road ahead reversed.

The Camino Santiago is also known as El Camino de las Estrellas, “The Way of the Stars,” as itfollows the Milky Way above.

Mediaeval pilgrims walking at night would use it to guide them.

Textured paper 1: white acrylic on black paper with sea salt granules to form Milky Way pattern.

Textured paper 2: white acrylic on black paper with moss to form Milky Way pattern.

Shapes traced from ball sculpture of books & magazines, “Singularidade 2011” by Alicia Martin Lopez, Cidade da Cultura de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela (more ethereal than other shapes tried).

Shapes traced from ball sculpture of books & magazines, “Singularidade 2011” by Alicia Martin Lopez, Cidade da Cultura de Galicia, Santiago de Compostela (more ethereal than other shapes tried

Stylized image of Milky Way from textured papers plus “soul bird” shapes from ball sculpture.

Tau cross pilgrims, arches & long road pattern traced & carved on plaster block.

Stylized Milky Way & soul birds traced & carved on lino strip glued to wood.

Colour palette for El Camino

Test print on textured paper

Colour palette for El Camino

Test print on textured paper

Wax dechanter

Wax resist on white gauze dyed blue

Batik hand-painted burnt sienna/copper

Wax dechanter

Wax resist on white gauze dyed blue

Batik hand-painted burnt sienna/copper

Block print colour test

Print medium plus acrylic hand-painted on sponged cotton

Block print colour test

Print medium plus acrylic hand-painted on sponged cotton

Artist statement on El Camino design:

“As above, so below” layers express the duality of the Camino de Santiago experience: spiritual/physical, heaven/earth, divine/human, internal dreams/external exertion. The Milky Way above is the cosmic Infinite which is the aspiration of the soul birds that are the pilgrims’ dreams. Below on the Earth are the cathedral-like arches that lead to the experience of the long road ahead. The Tau crosses, like miniature monks, represent the pilgrim walkers.

Artist statement on El Camino design:

SILK SCREEN

Traced from rubbings & impressions via paint/charcoal/oil pastels, blown up by photocopy & inked (the leaf itself becomes a mould)

Traced from rubbings & impressions via paint/charcoal/oil pastels, blown up by photocopy & inked (the leaf itself becomes a mould)

Acetate stencil held on screen with masking tape. Table of print medium, acrylic paint, textured papers, fabrics & T-shirts. Started with one colour, then two, then three.