.

Cover art for the Mercedes Mixed Tape #59

My cover artwork for the Mercedes Mixed Tape #59, released November 7, 2014. © Artwork & Photography by Alex Diamond

I was very honored for being asked to contribute the cover artwork for the famous Mercedes Mixed Tape! The original work I created for the edition #59 was drawn over a very personal photograph, something I usually never do but in this case it was just too tempting to resist: the picture was taken several years ago on a vacation with my family, riding around the beach in our Mercedes Benz 230S (built 1967, in my ownership since 1997). 

The music compilation featuring this cover went online November 7, 2014, and can be downloaded here.

Taking shots.

© Alex Diamond 2013

Having worked as professional photographer early in my career, today I am getting behind the camera only infrequently in my art work, for example as part of mixed media pieces. Like the 'Photodrawings'  - where I ink (and sometimes paint) directly onto my own photography which I stage only for the purpose of drawing over it afterwards. 

The final artwork: woodcut 'You were born inside my heart' (more info)

And from time to time when I start out on a new work and I just need to get closer to an idea, pose or gesture that is in my head, I enter the creative process with a photo shooting to compose reference images for carving or painting.

For 'You were born inside my heart', I've worked with one of my favorite regular models, Natascha Seebacher, a young fashion designer and dressmaker from Hamburg (Taesh), to get my idea into shape. A shape I then used as a reference for the female figure in this woodcut. altering features along the way that I think match my composition and 'story' for the artwork.

Besides the original reference image Natascha and I created, below are some outtakes from the camera time. 

You can follow Natascha's ventures into the fashion designer world here

@ Alex Diamond

@ Alex Diamond

@ Alex Diamond

@ Alex Diamond

© all images Alex Diamond 2013

Click here for more images from the final, three layered woodcut  'You were born inside my heart'

You were born inside my heart | woodcut, Dec 2013

You were born inside my heart
(3-dimensional) woodcut, acrylic paint, 90 x 80 x 10 cm (2013)

This is a pretty new direction within my woodcuts: it‘s going three dimensional ... adding depth through installing several layers of cut out and carved wood on top of each others.

,You were born inside my heart‘, a 90 x 80 x 10 cm large, three-layer-woodcut was created just in time for Jim Avignon‘s group exhibition „Happy hour at the Hypnotist“ opening December 7, 2013, at the legendary NEUROTITAN in Berlin-Mitte.

If you can't make it to Berlin, it may be available here.