October 2021 – A DEAD LETTER

Etching

30 October 20216 January 2022Dead Roses

Etching is the prossess of using acid to engrave a design into a piece of metal, then this metal is inked and printed. As this is a taught lesson at first ill be preparing the plate and drawing a random design.

I found this video on YouTube, this not only shows the process of etching but also of other techniques like dry-point and engraving. The video also shows different materials you can use within the studio we will use different materials to the ones used in this video but the outcome will be the same.

while preparing the plate we used a paste the technician made to clean the plate from grease (this took a couple of goes). Then we dried the plate using a heating plate and added hard wax onto the plate then let it cool down. Once the plate was ready we drew onto it using a needle.

This was the design I made on the plate and once this was done I taped up the back with pastel tape and made a handle so I could get the plate out the acid easier. This plate stayed in the acid for around 5-6 mins with a feather being rubbed over the surface as bubbles appeared. Due to the acid being used by other students and me wanting to tried more things with etching I decided to prepare a bigger plate.

This was the outcome to the first etching I made. I really like the outcome and it gave me a really good test on how detailed I can get before for acid starts to bite into the metal. Once I had done this I started to look into etching and how I could develop my ideas, I am going to make another post about the chapman brothers and their works with another artists etching and their development on it.

Another technique I used to create my print was the cleaning process, by the I mean I cleaned the plate from 90% of the surface ink but with the last 10% l only cleaned off highlights (e.g the highlights on the flowers) I decided to play around with adding highlights is to add depth and texture. I feel this really helped to develop the print from just a line drawing, also I feel I need to add colours to help this piece and help with showing the context more.

Artist CV

29 October 202129 April 2022Dead Roses

Contextual and professional Studies

Name:******* *****

Address:*************

Contact details:**********

Very brief description about your current practice ie specialism & studying FA at DMU

With in my studies I am exploring how society looks and treats other people, but also playing with the concept of the other side. The other side meaning how individuals feel about society. As a collective we don’t see how we pull people back and ideal the “perfect person”, yet there are people who don’t want to be this “perfect person” so they do what they want, this action of being who they want to be then creates the argument of are they the perfect person for being free and who they are or are they just too different that its bad? and who gets to decide this?. Therefor I am exploring how people like me, who want to be different and have art on my body but also fight with body image issues and just trying to be the best me I can, feel when society tells us we have to be a “perfect person” and hold all the creative individuals back.

Education and Awards (start from DMU go back to FAD/ND/A Levels)

Fine Art BA (Hons) Year 1

UAL Level 3 Extended Diploma in art and design (distinction)

UAL Level 3 Diploma in Art And Design (merit)

Exhibitions one person/group (start from most recent)

2 piece of my work Exhibited in the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery on the 4th December -21st January

Online exhibition with another student. ( in progress)

A group of students and I fundraised, planned and curated a gallery within Two Queens Gallery in Leicester for the second years in De Montfort University from 4th-8th march 2022

Exhibited work in the second year gallery .Two within the VJ patel building in De Montfort University 28th April-9th may 2022

Publications:

Any articles, magazines, these could be online

Commissions:

Collections (Sales):

don’t list individual sales, just mention they are in:

UK private/public collections

Europe private/public collections

etc

Volunteering with 𝙳𝙼𝚄 Local to help teach children art from 9;30-11;30 on Saturday for 10 weeks.

Made a printing edition with the class and it was given to some lecturers.

𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩

20 October 202130 December 2021Dead Roses

After making my original collagraph I decided to try and experiment more within this technique. As a start I wanted to see if I could create a reversed effect, for this is used a roller to roll ink onto the plate and then printed it. I’m glade I tried this because It changed the result dramatically.

After doing this I wanted to take my experimenting further, my next development is to go from under A5 to A1. I also want to try a more relief style collagraph, for this I thought of making this plate in a more 3D style.

For this I decided to try and use string to so it will have a low relief. This will also cause the paper to have a risen 3D print on the back, this could be a fascinating idea to develop.

I order to do this I used a A1 mount board and drew out the design I wished for. I used wool and PVA glue to slowly place it down. Once dried I painted the whole thing with shellac so it holds better but is also water proof.

when inking the plate up, at first, I wanted it to be clean and just lines but as I was in the process of inking I decided to be a little more loose and started to let the ink so where the roller would touch when just rolling over it. This left a blocky college look that I have been convinced to love.

This was the final look of just printing the collagraph and I really like it, the next thing I want to try is adding colour but I’m not exactly sure how I want to do that right now. All I know is I don’t want to do it with just ink and a roller. As I feel there is a much more interesting and effective way of adding colour.

next I will be trying etching and my plan is to do a black an white experiment etching and then try and add colour to both the etching and the collagraph, as I feel it might help me to be more loose if I can bounce between the two and use them to help the other. I also have plans to try out making a background before printing the collagraph but I’m not sure how I want the back ground so I need to do some experimenting on this.

𝗢𝗽-𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 + 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀.

13 October 20212 December 2021Dead Roses

𝗢𝗽-𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
The op art movement was an optiacal – allusion movement which manipulates colours and the use of black and white. The most known arts at the time were black and white, but i will be focusing on colour. The movement first started in 1964 when Times magazine used the term ‘op art’ to describe pieces of art in a show called Optical Paintings at the Martha Jackson Gallery, by Julian StancZak.

The concept of this art was to make a design that mimics movement, flashes or an illusion (due to how the colours work and contrasting rather than the art being a moving film).Although this is when the movement was first named, it was not the first time optical illusion was brought into art. For example ‘ zebras ‘ by Victor Vasarely in 1938 and more.

Colour started to ne developed in OP art around the beginning of 1965 when a handful of artists started to experiment with colours more within the op movement styles. While researching I came across Riley Bridget who was an artist who worked closely with this movement, both in colour and black and white.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTv1biPq4Cc

The link above is a video about Riley Bridget and her work over time. This clip talks about how she developed her work and process of understanding painting. Although at first she only used black and white to understand their relationship, she then slowly started integrating colour into the works. By adding colour slowly she really reset how she thinks about painting and colour in relation to movement and human vision.

From her works, have thought more on the idea of how I can develop my use of colours within art, to establish an understanding in how I can use colour effectuality and Beneficially for my work. weather to by adding colour after the print or during will have to be explored and found out with the art itself.

I wanted to try this optical illusion in my work but first in a way that is different to these artists and use some of my prints to create a new print. So l am going to be cutting up and manipulate a print i have printed this year but designed last year. (All done in 2021)

The top photos are my original prints, to create the illusion look I played around with how they look and how people will view them. I feel I could really develop on this and I want to try and use one of my big collagraphs to make a collage, my thoughts are to use bubble wrap and experiment with it.

I’m not so keen on the colour with this piece but it was an experiment so i don’t mind I can just explore more with this. I feel with colour, want to print colour on top of colour to create an effect, more that adding colour afterwards.

𝗖𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴

12 October 20212 December 2021Dead Roses

Collagraph is a process of a printing plate that has an abundance of different textures to create a print. It was first seen in 1955 when Glen alps used it, the word ‘collagraph’ comes from a Greek word and in simple terms means to glue/ graph (to draw). Near to anything can be used, due to this being a relief printing method the only setback is the material being glue on has to have a low relife (this is when the relief patern is shallow,for example string, a leaf or mount board when cut).

a vidoe i found explaining how to make collagraphs

While researching I discovered this video on YouTube presenting a simple homemade collagraph. Due to COVID I really like this technique as it’s simple to do from home. But this is also interesting as I could involved a lot of natural resources to create my prints. The women shows how you can create simple patterns with this method and can be used for the main print or as a background.

When desinging my relife print, i decided to develop a drawing i did last year for print (made in febuary 2021). I wanted to manipulate the blossom and snake skull to keep to the theme of beauty and ugliness, the skull would represent ugliness and the blossom is beauty (i fine skulls and bones beautifull but in this project im using them in a different light).

I decided to keep it simple as this was my first time experimenting within collagraph printing, i drew out the flowers and then added the snake skull behind. This shows the concept of when looking at anyhting weather its the world, a person or a relationship you might see the beauty but if you look harder there is always some kind of ugliness with in it.

On the left side is the plate I made. I found it challenging to Get my head around what textures are needed to hold enough ink in order to a have different gradients of black at first. Once I grasped an understanding I really enjoyed making this plate. Once the plate is ready and all glue (if used) is dry then you can apply a layer of varnish, for this I used shellac. Shellac is a substance that make the plate in a sense more water proof helping It to stay strong and give a better print due to being able to wipe ink off.

The varnish is applided in a room with an air vacuum and the left to dry. Next i appiled an oil-based black ink the used some scrim to take off all the extra ink before printing.
When printing you place some news print on the etching press then place the plate facing upwards… on top of the plate lay on some dampened cartage paper and the some more news print.

Mount board	Just the normal mount board surface creates a mid-tone grey (e.g the outside grey)
cuts (with a stanley knife)	This creates black lines (e.g the lines inside the flowers)
first layer taken off the mount board	This creates a much darker tone…. Basically black (e.g around the skull and flowers)
Glue / any shiney surface	This creates highlights (e.g highlights on tge skull and flowers)

How the ink reacts to different textures (there are loads more materials you can use)

I found this process intresting, I want to develop this technique further. Therefore I am going to create a piece on a much bigger scale, my first collagraph was smaller than A5, i am now going to design an A1 collagraph. I also want to take it one step further and print onto the print that comes out from the collagraph.

𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘑𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘴 𝘉𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘭 -𝘈𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩

2 October 20212 December 2021Dead Roses

Print

Paul Jackson is an artist I have been inspired by and research about a couple of times, due to our styles being closely related. Paul Jackson’s work mainly consits of skulls and animals. The concept behind them is the connection between the Skelton and the physical body we can see, but also to develop peoples views on animals.

https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/paul-jackson

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/938016047180466

https://www.boredpanda.com/skeleton-animal-draw.

When looking into the reasoning behind Jacksons works, I found a website by zio. A piece of text on this page has quote from Jacksons blog (Unfortunately I can not find this blog). In the quote previously mentioned Jackson explains reasoning for his works. The second paragraph Delves deeper into the photos l used as examples above. His quote discusses how he wishes to show animals in another light. His concept has a close correlation to to ‘point of view’, the project within print. Therefore this strengthens the link into why I’m looking at Jackson’s works.

Jackson adds his interests into his works, this includes the surreal and sci-fi. This is also accompanied by the hint of ‘technical faults’. From what I have learn from research is he has worked in the film industry with, 20th century fox and universal. therefore these traits have partly inspired him but also his own style within the art.

All the research I have conducted has given me ideas. The title is ‘point of view’ but I am going to develop that into how society see people and look into ugliness and beauty.therefor my Starting point is going to deveplo my snake design from my 1st year. This idea has evolved from my research into these artist, Paul Jackson and Travis Bedel, but also from my own intrestes (with in biology, animals and bones).

Beauty and uglyiness is a major choice we all make and can easly express,i have always been interested in the concept of how people act/treat others but also them selves. There for I am going to do research into how humans act within society and how different things might effect out view on a person.

I really visibly enjoy these works and find them very inspiring. The way in which he can bring a realistic nature style into art, is a skill I have been practicing and trying to bring to my own work. Travis Bedel is another artist i have research into. Bellow is a quote from Travis talking about his work and how he develops it. The way in Whitchurch he execute his works is interesting due to how he uses very simple materials, nevertheless the result has such detail. This is a skill that is very important within print making, due to not being able to acheve a mass amount of detail within a print unless it’s on a very large scale. Therefore being able to experiment with materials to make an illusion of details is a more developed way of making the print.

Conducting this studies of Travis Bedel and Paul Jackson has really inspired and helped me to develop ideas to start this project off. Alternatively there is another aspect of my work I want to grow, this is my relationship with colour. Throughout my practice I am very restrictive with my use of colour, within this project I will study the use of colour and find different ways to integrate it into my work.

A DEAD LETTER – Dead Roses

Month: October 2021