Tuesday 29 December 2009

Inspiration from scraps of newsprint ?!

So whilst I was producing all of my prints I had this obsession with removing the newsprint people had left behind on the printing press. This scrap news print however consisted of many sections of other peoples prints all layered on top of each other. As well as sections transferred from other peoples prints there were also marks created by the undersides of printing plates. Really random and obviously not put together with any thought due to the nature of the scraps but they were so beautiful and screaming with potential ! Each time I returned to use the printmaking studios I came across these left behind scraps of newsprint just left on the printing press. I had to salvage them !

Every time I obtained a new piece I took it home, trimmed it down a bit to enhance the quality of it and then stuck it up on my wall. There are quite a few of them there now. I’m currently at home in Liverpool – there still in Dundee so I can’t really admire them at the moment ! Plus I haven’t even took any pictures (stupidly) so you shall have to wait until I get back up there before I can post some up !

Just looking back at that paragraph…..what can I call these things?! These bits of scrap newsprint I have just rescued from being thrown away and never looked upon in the same way again ! They need a title ! But what? I’m sure something will come to me in time haha !

Anyway ! These little beauties really got me thinking about my next project and what I could do for it. It’s a self directed one so I was really chuffed I managed to get some inspiration quite early on !

I started to think along the lines of using unwanted items and giving them a chance to show off their beauty….rather than them just being dismissed for what they are. I could work into these items – make them into real pieces of art….or I could simply enhance the way in which they are displayed ? At this point I don’t want to pinpoint anything – I want to leave things open. I seem to close in on things way to early and this is something I definitely do not want to do for this project !

After having a good think about potential ideas I began having a little research into existing art out there which related to that of what I was thinking ! (This was before we broke up for Christmas) I amazingly found out about an exhibition that was currently on show in the Novas CUC in Liverpool. “Salvage” – an exhibition by Flintshire artist Tony Roberts. It sounded so ideal for what I was currently thinking about !

I really should blog in the present ! I always seem to leave things so late and go back to it ! This will be my new years resolution ! To write about things not so long after ! Anyway I went to see this exhibition and it was superb – this is what my next post will be about haha !

Tuesday 22 December 2009

“Final Outcome” for Print-making Project

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I ended up using this print for my “final outcome” I do like the print however I just don’t really like having to call something a “final” piece. Nothing is ever complete in my eyes. So much more could be developed from this project however I am happy with what I have achieved in the time. During this project I have been thinking about what I could do for my next project. A lot of ideas have sprung to mind and there has been a lot of influence from the visuals I have been exposed to in the print room. I shall speak about these thoughts and ideas more in my next post.

Print Experimentation

Below are some of the experimental pieces I produced whilst trying to get to grips with the lithography print-making process and developing some ideas for a final print.

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These are some of the prints I made using a plate developed from the sound drawings I initially created in the drawing project for the background and then printing a photograph I took of an iris in the botanic gardens (with the petals taken out) over the top of it.

I wasn’t really thinking about colour at this point so I just used whatever inks were out which other people were using.

I thought these prints would turn out better than they have. It may be the colour that is putting me off them but I think its more the boldness of the background appearing through the overprint.

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These prints appealed to me a lot more. There’s something subtle about the print underneath but also the strong contrast between the man made rails and the floral image. The railings almost become part of the flower providing a pattern for its petals. Even though this appears as something visually appealing; the fact that the railings are providing  some visual “beauty” to the flower is quite sinister seen as though man is ultimately destroying nature all of the time !

PC047073PC037072In my very first experiments with lithography I used the original Iris photograph. I decided on these developmental prints to use the  original photo plate again to produce some backgrounds to print onto.  The second floral photo plate I created was ideal to do this as I had cut some sections out on Photoshop meaning when I printed a different colour over the top of the full original print the original colour and detail from it would show through the sections I had cut out. I think these have worked really well, however it doesn’t really convey the contrast between man and nature I have been looking at. I therefore decided to continue producing some prints using the railings photograph and the Iris photograph (with sections cut out). Because there wasn’t really much time left after I had produced a lot of these experimental prints I needed to really come up with what I could produce as a “final outcome.” I never like the idea of final outcomes however I needed one so I then decided to produce some more thought out prints using specific colours.

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I decided to use an orange rusty colour for the railings and then a more natural colour ( blue/green) for the overprint. The print above was produced on newsprint so appears a lot bolder than it does on paper. This was another thing I had to think of ! Paper ! I started experimenting with a few different ones and came to the decision that the thinner paper worked best (even though the quality of the paper wasn’t so great !). I really liked the prints I produced on a sort of grid like texture – I’m unsure whether you can see this on the image below but it gives quite a nice feel to the print. 

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PC037036 ^ Grid-like texture this paper seems to give. 

I also started thinking “why can I not print onto a more textured surface?!” and therefore looked at printing onto pieces of paper I had collaged with advertisements – resembling a surface covered in torn posters etc (a well known man made image!) . I wish I had more time to experiment with this idea however I only produced a couple of these last minute and I never really had time to develop them further.

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Apologies for the wonky photographs ! Lol !