print – A DEAD LETTER

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.

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.

print – fennec fox skull (lino print)

25 February 202122 October 2021Dead Roses

Print

This is a fennec fox skull. This lino print is black oil based ink and on paper. The idea behind this is that it shows life and death and how death can also bring life to other things, this then shows time and how over a big part of time we all play our part but also life and death within it. death is a horrible thing but sometimes you need death of one thing for another to live, like how animals kill so they can eat.

I really like this piece and feel I’m getting a lot more confident within shading and how to use the lino print to create the look of depth. for these I use a scalpel as I find I have a lot more control.