The Woodwose
Before the forests had names, the deep wood was already watching.
The Woodwose is the silent sovereign of the canopy.
Formed from sharp leaf and ancient bark, this foliate watcher embodies the untamed spirit of ‘the old ways’. A primal reminder that the forest remembers everything, and yields to no one.
The Inspiration
The longevity of ancient European folklore holds a fascination for me. In particular I was always intrigued by the acceptance of such pagan symbolism onto the decoration of early Christian churches.
The Woodwose is my interpretation of a detailed Green Man.
Woodwose is one of those delightful Middle English terms in this case referring to The Wild Man or Wild Man of The Woods … which seems an apt name for somebody quite so foliate as this chap.
The Craft
This piece incorporates a ton of line shading and blending to get the various layers that give The Wodehouse his depth.
Nearly everything in the background uses hatching to try to give a wood-cut feel with blending over the top to get the right level of darkness. Many repeated blending passes were used to get the right level of darkness to place the layers relative to one another.
Whilst the face uses some hatching, there’s far more gradient shading to give a smoother feel to the skin (bark?) with thin linework doing the leg work for the hair.
Something about the veneer on this plywood meant that a fair bit of creosote was created rather than the clean burning that would have made the process somewhat easier.