Artists lie, cheat, and steal.

"Spock A Moiré" was created for the Star Trek zine Ex Astris, Scientia. "A charity Star Trek zine, focused on celebrating both the Original and Alternate Original Series (TOS and AOS)."

Sadly, this zine fell through when the finance mod went and disappeared. Major bummer since the money to actually print the zine went with them too.

 

I submitted my application on a whim a couple days before submissions were to close. I had literally just posted my T'hy'la pieces and used those along with some much older paintings as samples of my work. When I found out I was accepted into the project, I was excited since I had never been in a zine before, but also unprepared because I didn't think I'd get in! I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to draw (a TOS piece). After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to draw Spock, since he is hands down the most iconic character from the franchise and I love the character. I threw out this description to the mods in hopes they'd approve it. "TOS era Spock watercolor portrait. A half portrait with the IDIC symbol in the background. I'm thinking of including a spider moiré pattern somewhere in there as a nod to his position as Chief Science Officer." It was approved!

 

After drawing a thumbnail to work out the composition, I managed to create an image that matched my text description. Satisfied with the thumbnail, I moved onto the good paper. Ended up having a lot of fun working on this portrait (minus some procrastination and throbbing tooth problems that led to 2 root canals. Though I finished well before the deadline). I love the overlapping moiré pattern on the IDIC symbol. It came out so well, and it added an extra dynamic I didn't think about during the initial idea. To me, the tension and movement from the moiré is also a visualization of the conflict Spock feels as a half Vulcan/Human.

 

Anyway, I finished this on 9/6/20. Even though the project fell through, so happy to finally share this piece publicly. The wait has been agonizing since I'm really proud of this portrait!!

 

When I applied to create art for this zine, I really liked that they wanted to do things old school, so I offered to do a linocut. Relief printing seemed liked the perfect medium for this. What's more old school than printmaking? While it has been 7 years since I properly did any printmaking, I had most of the supplies on hand. I ended up experimenting with some new water soluble printing ink and different paper. While I was mostly satisfied with the results, I wanted to get my hands on some more Mulberry paper since my roll had run out early on in this project. Personally, it's the best paper for relief printing without a press. So I ended up contacting my professor from college to give me the name of the place where she buys her paper! I'm now super ready the next time I want to make a linocut.

 

Anyway, to fulfill the K/S part of the assignment, I drew a screenshot from the episode "Bread and Circuses". The only major change I made was have them stand 6" closer than in the reference image! XD

This piece was completed in February/March 2021, and all contributors finally got the OK to share our pieces publicly on 9/4/21.