Print (year 2) – A DEAD LETTER

Research Into Society – Contextual study

28 November 20213 May 2022Dead Roses

subject research

Statistics And Facts About Tattoos

I started by researching statistics of how many people have tattoos but also what type of people have them, within this image it shows that ‘tattoos seems to be more popular with people who attained higher levels of education’ I found this really interesting and against the normal stigma around tattoos.

There has always been a sense that if you have tattoos you are in a gang or the mafia, therefore I did not find it that shocking that Italy has the highest percentage. This does not mean that stigma is true, from this stigma seeing someone who has a lot of tattoo threatening. So we tend to stay away from them.

38 Tattoo Statistics: 2020/2021 Industry, Trends & Demographics | CompareCamp.com

How Fast Do Human Judge Each Other

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/how-many-seconds-to-a-first-impression

Within the website there was two psychologists called Janine Willis and Alexander who carried out some studies that determined it takes a human a 10th of a second to judge another. This is mainly from a persons face and not only the first impression but your opinion might not change from that first 10th of a second even when you know them more.

Do Tattoo Stop People Getting Jobs

The BBC new report talks about if tattoos still effect people getting a job, they speak both about people having better opportunities due to their tattoos and also how over the last 5 years (this would have been from 2014-2019) people have lost their jobs due to body art. Their is no law stating that a boss can not fire someone on the grounds of body art, but it is seen as not a viable reason to dismiss someone. Over the last few years body art has become more popular and accepted but it is still seen as a non-professional look.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48620528

How People Live Fully Covered In Tattoo

I watched video and it was really interesting as it shows how being tattooed can effect different parts of someone’s life. From love life to starting a new business, they follow them to see how people react to them but also how they have to be brave and push through the judgement.
Within this video people talk about how they feel about one of the men, how they call him scary and one even stated he should not knock on people’s door after it get dark as he will terrify them. This shows how without even knowing him they would actively stay away from him, just due to appearance.

Where You Are Not Allowed Tattoos

Though all this research it has shown that society is slowly changing to become more acceptable to change ( I know this was heavily tattoos based) but it is still far from accepting, this is not only the same for tattoos this is throughout many different groups who are all trying to be themselves.

As this website says japan is a country where it is not really acceptable to have tattoos, this is surprising due to Japanese style bring so popular. Another one that was a shock was USA, I did not think they had a problem with tattoos due to the amount of Americans that get tattoos. On the same website here is one more facts I found interesting so thought it would add them.

Is It Safe To Have A Tattoo In Turkey? – CowBoy Tattoo

Chine-collé technique

11 November 202111 January 2022Dead Roses

Artist research

chine-collé is a technique of glueing thin paper of a different texture or colour like tissue paper is glued onto prints. When using this technique you ink up the plate, then prepare the paper as normal. Before placing the paper onto the inked plate you place the thin paper on the plate glue side up and then place the paper onto, so when it goes through the press the papers will be glue together but so well it appears to be one piece of paper.

This is a video explaining the technique and showing you how Ken Elliot did the process but I will not be using the same materials as him, but the outcome will be the same. Instead of wallpaper paste I will be using a glue stick due to using tissue paper. This adds a layer of colour underneath the print therefore it’s an easier way to add background colour. I found this video really helpful to get some ideas on how I can use this technique more.

https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/chine-colle

This is the MoMam page explaining the proses of the technique, but also about the materials used. I decided to look into the technique on MoMa as it is a more truthful scores..

the plan

I will be using the plate I have made in dry-point and etching to try this technique on. I will be using them to experiment and explore how I could use this style to bring colour into my works. I have choosen the smaller etching due to the nature with in it, the nature has various different colours within it making the colour range more That just green. The photo below is the plan on what I might do with my etching.

The main colours I want to use is red, yellow and green. I also have white to see if it will change anything but as the paper is white I feel it will just blend in. I will be putting the outcome onto another post to see what has happened and if I want to make changes or I will carry on using this way of adding colour to my prints.

Chapman brothers

8 November 20219 January 2022Dead Roses

Artist research

while I was doing primary research with nature I also thought about the chapman brothers and the work they did with someone else’s etchings, the chapman brothers used art to be very controversial and made to make people have a very strong reaction.

Jake and Dinos chapman are two know English artists who used art to bring reactions to the public in many different ways, one of Whitchurch that I’m very interested in. The main prices I am interested in was their works on some of Francisco Goya’s etchings (a total of 80) and then drew onto each of them with cartoonist and ‘funny’ characters. The original series was ‘the disasters of war’ by Goya but once changed turn into ‘the disasters of everyday life’ below are some this series.

The original series was to show people who bad the Spanish war was and the horrific events that take place, then the brother drew over them and made them into a joke, as they wants to create shocking reactions within people.

these are works are so free, these showed me how even if there are lines set and a drawing in place doesn’t mean that is what you have to stay with. The brothers took a pre-existing drawing and reinventing it. This helped me to develop my colour work as it helped me think that just cause I have created boundaries with my drawings and art doesn’t mean I have to stick with them. Therefor with my etching i am going to try and add colour in a more loose way, I have thought about a technique called chine-collé. As this would give me the opportunity to be more loose with my work and try to have a less of a detailed approach.

form thinking about being more loose / abstract within my work, I decided to try and make a really ruff plan on how I might want my work to look. But I will not be sticking with it, I want to make a plan to try an encourage myself to be more loose. So I have used Procreate on one of my etchings to just add some colour to an image.

As much as I hate this as I do not like colour I still want to go ahead and experiment so with the next prints I am doing with this plate I will be experimenting with chine-collé, but I will be setting the risk and task to use the tissue paper how ever it rips as this will give me less control of the outcome.

natural inspiration from walks

5 November 20219 January 2022Dead Roses

artist research

While exploring etchings I started to look into insperation on how I can develop my etchings and I remembered the chapman brothers, but also a massive inspiration is the world around us. I have some photos of places i went that inspired me but also about the chapman brothers.

Nature inspires alot of my work as drawings but as this year I have been exploring and descoving/ studing nature more. I started to think about and learn much more about colours and how nature uses them. Below are some photos I took while out n nature that inspired or intrested me.

These are some of the places I went and thing I saw that inspired me, all of the colours are there for a reason weather it to draw things in, to send a warning or to camouflage. When looking at this side of colour it helped me to understand on how I can use colour within my art. By this I mean how I can draw a persons eye through my works or to one section of the work before another.
The mushroom shown in the photo is a brightly coloured rare mushroom in the waxcap family ( scarlet waxcap). They are rare due to how they will only grow in grass lands that haven’t been touched by pesticides and chemicals, the bright colour makes the mushroom stand out from the grass and bring a persons eye straight to it. For art this would help people to be drawn to a section of the artwork before another this could be useful for a body off work being presented or a massive piece with a deeper meaning.

the Foxthe fox fits into the nature but also seems like it’s a random colour of orange, this shows how you can use colour more freely and have some that stand out really strong in an image it doesn’t always have to fit in, it’s more abstract.

white flowers flowers are bright and colourful and stand out to help bees find them to be pollinated, therefore the bright colours make them stand out and attract people towards them in order to help themselves. This could be used in art in a way that I’d you have a bright colour scattered around a piece of art the persons eye will scan across the whole pierce of art and make the art look more of a whole piece with the same colour linking different elements.
Trees in the Woodall thought the trees are a different colour to the ground around them, they still are harder to see. This shows how you have to take a longer look than normal to be able to see them. This could be used in art as a way of making people look deeper into the art and also making something seen but not as straight away.
Grass on the tree this shows how different things in nature can stand out and contrast against each other, this could be used well in art to make one thing stand out more than the other.

moss on tree the moss hides the tree really well but you can still see it, using this technique shows how something can be so in your face but still hidden.

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.

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.

𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘵 ‘𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸’

30 September 20212 December 2021Dead Roses

print

When examining the brief, I found the title of the project, point of view, interesting. As a result of there being many outcomes. I know the first technique we are being taught is collagraphs. To keep starting this project simple, I will develop a design from last years project for the first technique.I wish to develop an deep understanding for how society preserves beauty and ugliness within others.My work will investigate this part of human life due to its massive impact to how humans work within communities, but also how it helps or hinders us to develop relationships with each other.

My practice is going to push the understanding . this is a massive part of human life but we never think about it and when we do we always claim we don’t judge people. when this I not true, everyone judges people it is how we determine if someone is a good person or if we want to stay away from them. below is some examples of last years works that i am doing to develop for the beginning of this years project.

I have looked online for some more inspiration for this project just within animals bones for now, this is mainly for inspiration on what I can make for my collagraph. I have a fascination with narrative to express an art piece, as i feel it helps the art piece come alive but also helps the work connect to the viewer.

Below are illustrations I found and Want to take some inspiration from. The key approach I wish to take from these works is create detail within a simple way. This is how I need to execute my collagraphs as I cant have loads of little detail without the mount board falling apart.

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/774267360915140886/

An artist i have taken inspiration from is Paul Jackson, his work mainly involves animals and their skeletons. I am going to do another post discussing him and talking about the concept of his work. His work develops a lot on the idea of how we see animals. I feel this links closely to my work so I wanted to look into his work deeper as a starting point for my work.

https://www.boredpanda.com/skeleton-animal-drawings-pen-pencil-paul-jackson/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

Within the photos shown above is a key example of his works, I want to involve colour in my project but not straight away. I feel Jackson used grey scale, highlights and a 3D element in a very developed way to convey his art. This then gives the viewer a better understanding of where the skeleton is coming from and the form of the animals.