GRUSS VOM KRAMPUS

I finally took some photos of my first attempt at screen printing,  a tribute to the Yule time myth of Krampus. You might be wondering who in the hell I am referring to but you're not alone as he's almost unheard of in America. The short and skinny is that originally St. Nick came to reward children on Christmas with presents if they were good. But in turn, if they were naughty little monsters then Krampus came a knockin' equipped with birch branches and chains to whip them with. If these miniature miscreants were particularly terrible, they would be tossed into a sack or basket and carried off to be... well, I bet you can imagine some of the horrors a demon might have in store for his prey. I hear the flesh of children is quite a delicacy to the underworld.

*shudder*

A lump of coal sure seems mighty nice in comparison to demon torture doesn't it? So our touchy-feely wuss-puss culture decided to drop ole Krampus from our X-mas celebrations. I don't know about you but I might not have been such a little turd growing up had there been a possibility that a horned and cloven fiend might come for a visit.

I wanted to subtlety work in little bits of his myth into this mini poster print that you might write off as purely decorative unless you knew the story. Some of which are the little kids hands reaching out for forgiveness at the top, the sad children silhouettes on the sides, the chains at the bottom and the two birch branches that the banner wraps around. The banner stating Gruss vom Krampus, translates to Greetings from Krampus. My first run was in black and white and the rest varied in color and inking techniques. I was attempting to produce a somewhat 3-D look with the use of white under the red in the last pic below. There are about 10 one of a kind color prints that will be for sale once I get my Etsy store opened back up in the next month if anyone is interested in purchasing an edition. It might just help keep the spirit of Krampus alive and keep your kids in line!

So when the Christmas season rolls around again just remember that if the chestnuts are roasting, so might be naughty little kids at the hands of Mr. Krampus.