LA Journal--Death Alley

Before

 

This is a continuation in the series based on the newspaper headlines that appeared in the LA papers when I was on vacation. The page started out as one of my favorites (seen above). The page was bright with yellows and oranges with a sunburst orange cloud in the middle.

The headlines of the paper dealt with a Texas--Mexico conflict where people where dying on their way to illegally cross the border. There is a stretch of abandoned road where people try to cross and many people are simply too weak from the effort and are left to die out in the open--abandoned by their loved ones and the by the people who were paid to bring them across. The police officials call this stretch of road--Death Alley due to the number of people who are found dead.

I have always been attracted to typography so the background consists of the lyrics to two songs famous in Texas--The Yellow Rose of  Texas (written in orange maker along the diagonal) and Texas O Texas (the State song of Texas--written in a circle with black marker). The title of the page was written on either side of the margin in Fuschia marker using a stencil guide.

To add interest to the page, I cut out a stencil of the state of Texas and colored it with orange water soluble crayon and then proceeded to wet the crayon to give the outline of Texas in orange. I then cut out another stencil in the shape of a skull and used water resistant crayon to color in the stencil in black wax crayon. To finish off the piece, I used my homemade alcohol inks to simulate blood and bruises found on many of the dead bodies. The colors of the inks were blue, pink, blood red, orange, and yellow.

After

I usually don't go for such morbid topics but after reading the article in the paper I believe the page warranted the treatment that it received. Being from Texas made the project even more difficult to do.