St Leonard of Vandoeuvre

As I mentioned in the last post, I will be doing a lecture and demonstration of woodcut next week at the Ocean County Artists Guild. When doing some kind of public event, I prefer to have an actual project to work on, rather than just a scrap of wood. So that means getting something going right now. The easiest thing was to get another saint print started.

When searching for information on another saint last year, I ran across the biography of St Leonard of Vandoeuvre. He was a 6th century abbot, who was known to encourage people to give up their property and leave the service of the king, including military service. Despite this, the king eventually became a patron of his abbey.

Back in mid 1990's when I started this series, the story wouldn't have struck a chord (and it didn't, since I ignored it then), but several years into a much debated and protested series of wars in the middle east, with the military struggling to meet enlistment quotas, the story seems a bit more relevant now. The idea I came up with is a military recruitment office with anti-war protesters outside.

The one recruiting station that I know of in my area is a nondescript storefront in Bradley Beach, not particularly inspiring. More recently I thought of a more famous station, the one that's been in Times Square for decades. Too bad I didn't think of it earlier, because I was in Times Square back in April and could have done some sketches. I went to the internet and found various photos, which were the basis for the first drawing above. I also remembered a book I have with a photo from the late 60's, which showed the station as it looked then. I combined elements of both into a later sketch (2nd photo), which I liked well enough to base the final version on. Today I was in the Studio, translating the earlier efforts into a block sketch, which can be seen above. This is not quite finished, but pretty close. I need to work out what's seen through the door (a soldier, etc), and the Uncle Sam poster on the right side of the block. The rest is pretty much done. Over the next few days I need to finish the drawing, and start the cutting- finish the outline and date, maybe get to some of the interior.