Gods of Literacy, Part 2

When last we saw the Gods of Literacy, they were grabbing onto the legs of Anansi, as he gave them his stories. These words were bring channeled right into the glyphs, cuneiforms, hieroglyphs and other letter forms of each culture. So…since Anansi and his arms were going to be white (to stand out against the multi-colored images of the gods, and to make the connection visually obvious) then all the letters had to be white too.

Which means I had to go back, and run all the letters through this process:

Why didn’t I do that first? Well, it takes a LOT of time to magically hollow out each letter, even in Photoshop, so I’ve found it’s better to wait and see which ones I really wind up using.

Time to try colors. About half of these are based on the original colors of the images I found online. The others are best guess/see what works. Looks good to me! ah…but we need the title. Which cannot be the usual white, with all the white legs and letters.

Definite NO on the white. Black lettering does work…..but would it be possible to fit it in the center? The dark letters would help draw in the eye (instead of dragging it down off the page).

(many attempts later) OK then. Title in the center. Now I just have to print it out on cotton and paint in the dyes…..all around each of those tiny little letters.

Just as I was starting the dye-paint, I hurt my back. Not able to lean over the studio table for awhile. But, I pinned the cloth to some foamcore, and settled myself in a firm chair with a heating pad.  For 2 days, I used very small brushes and sat very still and now it’s all painted……but.

But it’s just wrong somehow. The contrast will be improved by stitching, but is it REALLY worth all that sewing to see if maybe that will make it sing???  I tried a few photoshop variations:

By inverting the colors, I get a batik-like effect:

OK. Let’s leave this print for now. DO NOT SEW. Just go back to Photoshop, and start back with the original design.

Contact me at dianesavona@aol.com. See you next week!