Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Lubok: Drop perspective, range the figures across, fill the rest with words
- Type
- Set in Lubok's manner (Hand-written text poured around the picture and framed as one unit), and let ROSTA Windows's lettering (Short rhymed lines in large hand lettering, one line to a panel) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Lubok's material (Thick woodcut outlines with red, yellow and green washed past the line); bring in exactly one thing from ROSTA Windows (Cut card stencils printed fast in two colors, red and black).
- Colour
- Build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 and admit one accent from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615.
Where they fight
- Lubok and ROSTA Windows share no intent, so the contrast has to become the subject rather than something to smooth over.
- Roughly 1902 years apart. Keep one of them recognisably period rather than letting both drift into the middle.
Caution
- Lubok Tidying the outline and keeping the color inside it removes the misregistration and rough hand that carried the warmth of a popular print.
- ROSTA Windows Refining the shapes into one finished picture loses the speed of printing and pasting the same day, leaving the look without its function.
Image prompt
An original image that takes its structure from Lubok (Style, 17th–19th century) and its accent from ROSTA Windows (Style, 1919–1921). Structural cues: Thick outlines; Flat hand-coloring; Image and text together; Satire and story. Accent cues, used sparingly: Simple stencil shapes; Storytelling in panels; Red and black as signal colors; Rhymed captions. Composition: Drop perspective, range the figures across, fill the rest with words. Type and lettering: Hand-written text poured around the picture and framed as one unit. Let one material quality come from the second style: Cut card stencils printed fast in two colors, red and black. Mood: Play, Intimacy, Nostalgia, Rebellion, Exhilaration, Technology. Color: build on #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615 with a single accent drawn from #e9e6dd, #67635d, #171615. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Lubok 17th–19th century / Style / Popular Prints
Russia's popular print: thick outlines, flat hand-coloring, image and text sharing the sheet, circulating sacred stories and satire cheaply. The avant-garde rediscovered it in the 20th century as Russia's native form.
- ROSTA Windows 1919–1921 / Style / Printmaking and Social Movements
During the civil war the ROSTA news agency pasted stencil-replicated poster serials in the windows of empty shops. Mayakovsky and others turned the news into comic-strip panels of simple shapes and rhymed verse, inventing the prototype of rapid-response graphics.
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