Print Elective

The brief was titled "defining our space". It was one of the most enjoyable briefs to work with so far. We were told to consider how a space might change our environment. I decided to go with the view from my house which is a dense coniferous forest. A space which I really like to go for walks in. Recently they have started to cut down the trees, so much so that the forest is sadly now very bare and the logs sit there piled up . This changed my surrounding space a lot and that is why I chose to go with this idea.

I took some pictures of the piles of logs and used these to help me make an etching. I then did mono printing with layers of a cream, orange and browm so that it wasn't a really flat colour. I tried out a few varieties of this to see what worked and what didn't.

This was the forest before all the trees were cut down.. This is a mono print. I did a few of these with different browns and added a transparent black in some to give the trees a bit more dept.

This was just an experiment to see what a plain flat colour would look like.

For this print I tried to make it look a bit more eerie, i used both beige and blue for an evening sky and black trees.

This was where i layered an ethching on top of the mono prints.

I tries the ethching a few different ways with different colours but i think the mono prints on their own are stronger.

Next I tried using waste piece of cardboard, paper and empty cartons to make numerous triangular shapes for making a slum. I introduced a small bit of color which was just on empty milk cartons and cardboard boxes because like the people in these countries they make do with what they can find to provide them with shelter. When arranging them all I started to pile them up so that they weren't neatly arranged to give the crowded look.

After using the make-up sponges before I decided to try out the idea of the slums in larger car sponges, however the sponges were really bright yellow and it was soaking the paint up so it wasn't very successful. I decided to leave it as it was taking a long time and i didn't see it having a very strong outcome..but at least I tried it out and know what works and what doesn't for again!!

After working with all triangular shapes stacked on top of each other it was said to me that is resembled the slums. When i looked into slums in Mumbai, Rio de Jeniro and Mexico i could see some similarities and I used these slums as a guide for which colors to use. in comparing all the different slums I noticed that other that the many shades of browns a sky blue is a very prominent color. I decided to do a collage and I am happy with the outcome.

I then went to the plaster room and did some plaster casts using end cuts of wood in triangular shapes and stuck them into it to give it different shapes and see how it would turn out....

While looking at all the details in paper i started to look again at the panels in paper rather than all the tiny details which take a log time to draw! So Elaine suggested using the small make-up sponges, i tried this out and this inspired me to try it with cardboard and tracing paper also. Here's some photo's!!

Ok so it's been a while since i've last updated my blog!

I am glad to say that my project has moved on since my last post. Originally I was looking at wrinkles and ageing in different things but when I started looking at the wrinkles in paper it started to take my project somewhere....at last! I have pictures to upload which might help explain..