Week 3- Hell money

In last week's blogpost, I discussed my idea to produce money for the afterlife. This idea was inspired by various things; primarily, this hell money that my mum gave to me a while ago:

This has been stuck on my wall for a few years, I don't know its origin.

I was also inspired by ancient Roman ideas of giving Charon- the ferryman of the dead, an 'Obolus' coin. This was not to pay for the passage, but to say thank you to the gods for their life.

These were my first concept designs, inspired by the hell money I had already and a tenner I had on my desk. I used crosshatching and other pen shading techniques to emulate the style of printed money. I also included floral motifs, the ouroboros symbol and skeletons. 'Exanimus Expensum' means 'Death cost' in Latin and the asian characters are taken from the original hell money.
From these experiments, I produced a final Heads and tails design:

I really like what I made and feel that I pulled my favourite parts from the first designs well.
The next step was to print this out a few times but with the front and back printed on opposite sides.

Initially, I wanted to print them on special paper that felt like money but college had no paper like that unfortunately. So I decided to add a green paper texture to the notes in Photoshop and then printed them on paper in the reprographics department. The ink left the paper feeling glossy and un-money-like so I didn't want that. In the end I decided to print the money in black and white. I sliced them up into 24 individual notes then washed them with diluted watercolour on both sides. This left the notes soggy and malleable allowing me to screw them up, tear them and generally weather them.

I'm very chuffed with how these came out! They look quite authentic to me. My classmates enjoyed throwing them about. I think it's a good sign when your classmates are interested in what you've made. I'm not sure how to present the money, I might stack them together. I'm also considering making a film or taking a series of images of myself burning the money.