Oedipus Rex Theatrical Poster Illustration

Gouache and ink on 11x16 cold press illustration board.

Pictured above is a recent project for my intermediate illustration final. We were asked to complete an illustration for either a poster promoting a blues event or a theater poster promoting a production of our choice. I obviously chose the latter as I felt it get me more freedom in terms of what I wanted to illustrate and with that opened up possibilities in materials and techniques I could experiment with.

For those who are unfamiliar with Oedipus Rex, in summary the story is the first in a series of three Greek tragedies by Sophocles that detail the events of Oedipus who is prophesied to kill his father and sexually posses his mother. Throughout much of the play Oedipus does everything in his power to alter his destiny in order to prevent it from occurring but ironically enough all of the actions he takes in hopes of reversing the prophecy ultimately end up bringing him to face his inescapable fate. Upon realizing that his fate has been completed he gouges his eyes out symbolizing his blindness to reality.

I began by researching some theatrical posters, specifically ones having to do with the subject at hand. I felt that most of the posters I found promoting showings of Oedipus Rex were very static and boring. They did a poor job of capturing the climactic tragedy that the story builds up to and I wanted to capture that in my depiction. The image is a photo I took of a friend which I broke down into a simple two part stencil. For this painting I used black india ink and watercolor gouache. To achieve the speckled textural effect almost the entirety of the painting was created using a dog toothbrush which has two ends, one large and one small for bigger blotches of paint and smaller speckles respectively.

I think the illustration does its job capturing much of what the play is about so I'm pretty happy with the way the painting turned out. On a side note I now write for inb4track, a music review blog dedicated to reviewing /mu/sicians, home recorded projects, and independently made music. Check out a few of my latest reviews of The Pessimist Hangs the Optimist's latest EP and Qwertzuiop - Dead Oak. Recently circuit bending has developed into a small hobby of mine so expect to see posts documenting my exploitation of electronic toys in the future.

On Repeat: The Pessimist Hangs the Optimist -  You See All Kinds of Things When You Are The Only One Awake EP, Vasko - Enough Enough

Other Blogs / Sites of Interest: Thumbtack Press (pretty cool art site)