New print 'Freyja' headed out to April patrons this week! (Patreon)

Don't worry- I haven't missed March's print- I just need to tweak the colors and I'll be ready to ship that print out as well this week! Just wanted to share this one because it also needed to be sent in and shared for the Giant Robot Yokai, Folklore and Fairytales show, here in Los Angeles. I'm so happy to have been asked to participate in the art shows here at Giant Robot, I love the artists they work with and the themed shows they curate- definitely worth a check out if you're here in LA (but you can also find the shows online here!

This print is about Freyja, the Norse Goddess who rides a chariot with pulled by two cats. I based it off of the most famous story of Freyja, which is pretty bizarre in classic folklore fashion, but fun nevertheless. Freyja is known as the Goddess of love, fertility, death and battle- kind of a catchall for an epic God, so I wanted to depict her as powerful and beautiful surrounded by a blazing sword and summertime flowers. In the lore of Freyja, she goes to see the dwarves who are making a beautiful necklace she declares she must have. She ends up taking the necklace without accepting the dwarves terms of being their friend in exchange for it (rude) and seemingly in return she loses her lover. When she comes home to show him the necklace he's just gone. So she goes on an epic search for him around the world, flying through the sky on her chariot pulled by two cats. There's a lot more to the story but it's pretty long and this is the main gist of it- and the only elements I really added that depicted her story best. 

This is a three color Risograph print in blue, fluorescent pink and yellow. Attached are the black and white Riso masters I made for each color drum and the digital color file that I started with. I ended up reallllyy hating how much yellow was in this print when I saw my first pass so I lowered the opacity of the yellow and some of the blue to make a less harsh print and really play up some of the pinks that I thought were working better. After that second pass I was pretty happy, but decided to switch the orientation of the print so I wasn't feeding the top of the image into the printer because there was a pretty bad roller mark hitting right under her chin which made her face slightly blurry. Sometimes just changing the orientation the print is pulled into the machine from can change the outcome of some of the sucky parts of Riso printing- the inevitable roller marks. It's just something you have to be a little strategic about or change the size of the image to make the rollers grab little to no ink when it's pulling the paper through the machine to print. 

Thanks so much for reading and let me know if you have any questions in the comments!
xoxo - nat