Wooden plaque

I did this in December 1996 for my sister, who’s a big Mike Scott (of The Waterboys fame) fan, and the lyrics of his song Spirit are written out here:

Man gets tired, Spirit don’t,
Man surrenders, Spirit won’t;
Man crawls, Spirit flies;
Spirit lives when Man dies.


Man seems, Spirit is,
Man dreams, the Spirit lives;
Man is tethered, Spirit is free,
What Spirit is Man can be.

I sanded down the natural, untreated wooden surface, and primed the plaque with spray fixative. I wrote with sumi ink, and gouache, and used gold foil for decoration. The finished piece is approximately ten inches high. The plaque was affixed, with a wooden peg, to a simple wood block base.