Loki Gwynbleidd Vintage Propaganda
catalogue of illustrations – winter 2022-23
About - What you should know.
On this page you will find all useful information about "The Drawing Coypu", the propagandist craftsman behind the posters, cards and other visuals featured on this site.
The Anarchist Propagandist.
Anarchist for a long time and illustrator of vintage stuff since March 2020.
I am lucky enough to be a propagandist artist who lives in France with his partner, his cats and his neuro-atypia.
I love coypus (which I can use to remain anonymous on the Internet), puffins and buckwheat pancakes.
Precarious & unemployed (but not jobless), I draw both to calm my anxieties and to earn a little money.
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My main goal is to make anarchist, communist and socialist propaganda that affects the largest number of people.
So I include progressive and revolutionary messages in my work, as well as inclusive and radical themes.
Mutual aid, class struggle, anti-authoritarianism but also the matters ofgender identity or the denunciation of police brutality are my favourite subjects.
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From an anarchist perspective and a desire for accessibility, I distribute my content for free.
All my work (except for commissions) is published under a Creatives Commons license..
In addition to this free sharingI offer paid services and prints for purchase.
This free / for profit compromise allows me (to try) to make a living from my work while respecting my ideological convictions as much as possible.
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My creations are inspired by posters, maps and iconographic documents from the 1840s to the 1920s, and more particularly by Victorian, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau styles.
My aim is to make revolutionary propaganda by diverting the uses of advertising and by refusing the current norms of communication. This is reflected both in the choice of messages and in the refusal to respect the hierarchy of information and symbols of modern design.
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Loki Gwynbleidd House and its founder are present on other platforms and networks to shitpost spread Vintage and Anarchist Propaganda and discuss perspectives of struggles.
Find all the links to Loki Gwynbleidd on the linktree 
Techniques
Used to make the differents artworks.
The computer-generated visuals allow great creative freedom while providing a certain security (crtl + Z my friend!)
For my posters, I base myself on old illustrations (engravings, lithographs, etc.) from which I draw inspiration for the composition and/or the rendering.
In order to recreate the vintage styles that I like, I use a combination of free brushes and textures copied from old documents.
Linocut is a technique of engraving on linoleum blocks (nowadays special gums can also be used).
Invented at the very beginning of the 20th century, it works in the same way as wood engraving, of which it is a relative: a support is carved out to make a stamp which is then inked and applied to a printing medium (paper, fabric, etc.)
This is a relief printing technique: only the retained parts are printed.
Typography is a process invented in Europe in the 15th century but largely inspired by techniques developed in Asia centuries earlier.
By arranging movable characters together (typesetting), the printing formt is created that can be printed on paper.
Letterpress can be combined with other relief printing techniques such as woodcutting or linocut to add images to the text. Metal printing blocks (stamps) were often used for this purpose.
Cyanotype is a fairly simple photographic process based on iron salts (traditional photography uses silver salts).
Invented in 1842, it allows images to be printed using the sun's UV light. To do this, it is sufficient to place objects or negatives on a paper covered with sensitizers in daylight for a certain period of time. The image is revealed by rinsing in water.
Cyanotype is non-toxic and produces blue monochrome images (Prussian blue pigment)
Equipment
Except for the typography, almost all content has been designed and thought out on a computer.
The digital posters and models are made on computer equipment and more specifically with :
- a Wacom Intuos Pro M Paper Edition graphics tablet
- a pc with AMD Ryzen 5 3400G ( Radeon RX Vega 11 integrated), 16 GB DDR4 corsair and a 250 GB SSD (and like 2-3 TB for storage) and too much ugly neon.
- Free software (Krita for digital painting & Gimp for typography, effects and post-processing)
The linocuts are produced using :
- Pfeil gouges
- Arkansas sharpening stones
- Essdee SoftCut blocks
- Essdee inkink rollers
- Charbonnel & Essdee inks
- DIY for guides, wedges and other small materials
- An EasyTypo proof press/flatten press
Je fais mes tirages cyanotypes avec :
- Jacquard sensitizers
- Aquapad watercolour paper from Clairefontaine
- An old brush
- Transparent film for making negatives
- A 50 watt LED UV lamp (for orticulture)
- Hydrogen peroxide and cheap household vinegar