Oddity Flowers

My latest ATC (artist trading card) swap included these two ideas inspired by clip art of human anatomy. The spring theme was “Oddity Flowers.” I love this anatomical engraving of the human eyeball (identical to the one I found in the clip art book I was looking through), which screamed “flower” at first glance:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/111365698/the-human-eye-19th-century-medical-chart

I can’t take much credit for the ATC–I added a little color, a flower stem and leaf to an already beautiful illustration that could probably stand alone as a flower, without my embellishment:

“Eyeball Blossom” ATC: anatomy of an eyeball clip art, watercolor pencil, ink

I also used another image from the anatomy clip art, a side view of a male face and neck showing the muscular anatomy underneath. I colored and collaged this in with miscellaneous brown images for soil, and two snake tongues “planted” on end to look like germinating plantlets (with inked in blossoms) springing up from a partially exposed, decomposing body.

“Germination” ATC: side view of face and neck gross anatomy clip art, snake tongue clip art, watercolor pencil, ink

Perhaps all those CSI’s I keep watching are having an affect on me, but I liked the juxtaposition of life and death in such a grisly scene, and how nature always finds a way of snaking out opportunity for survival among death and decomposition–a requirement for new life.

Maybe more macabre than oddity, but that is where my mind wandered that day. I was getting frustrated. I thought this theme would be an easy one but I ended up having a hard time with it, with nothing grabbing me until I finally came eye to eye with one odd source for a flower.

02 Apr This entry was published on April 2, 2013 at 1:58 AM. It’s filed under Art and tagged anatomical art, artist trading cards, ATCs. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.