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The Christmas break has been an interesting period; despite the fact that it was a relief to finally take a break and come home, I have found that the atmosphere here is very difficult to work in. Where I could shut myself away in Falmouth and write or draw, at home this becomes a lot more difficult, with more distractions and other commitments. To put myself into the right mind set has been tricky, even just doing research has proven difficult. I guess that I have just associated Falmouth with working and now that I am back home I do not feel in the right place to make work. However, I did manage to create a number of experiments using copies of my collograph prints. Inspired by the series of small photographs that I saw in Tate St Ives, I have looked at how cutting my prints into small squares alters the outcome of the composition. The details of the print become more obvious, it is as if you are using a view finder to focus on individual parts of the image. And by placing them in a linear sequence, it links back to the Tate exhibition piece and it also relates well to the idea of a narrative or a journey. 
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One of the ideas that I had been thinking about for some time was the potential use for my cardboard sculpture. As much as I like its form now (it took a long time for it to grow on me in the first place so that’s definitely something!) I have always been interested in its potential if it were to be flattened. The idea which I had been toying with was to flatten the sculpture in order to use it as some sort of material to print with; like a large-scale collograph plate. After discussing the idea with several people the general consensus was to not crush the sculpture and to leave it as it is, and make a separate sculpture to flatten or to start a collograph plate from scratch. What I have done for now is created a collograph plate that pulls elements from the work that I have already created. I have replicated a number of visual elements that I find interesting in a number of my pieces and combined it together. By zooming in and focussing on individual works I have discovered new lines shapes and forms, and it is these which I am trying to represent in the plate. It is an eclectic mix of materials and textures. The initial aim is to see how these textures look when printed, and from there to refine and make more plates.
I am really pleased with the outcome of the prints, both the first print and the following ghost print have printed well, whilst at the same time looking completely different to one another due to the amount of ink left on the plate. It is interesting to look closely and discover how each individual material has printed and what textures it has produced. For me the elements where I didn’t pay too close attention to refining whilst making the plate have turned out the best. For example, I think that the placement of the string responds well to my existing body of work but I am not so sure that I like the print that it produces; the close surrounding areas do not print at all due to the raised level of the string so the overall composition becomes a little disjointed where patched of the paper have not been printed on. But I do like the smaller scale contrast between ink and paper produced by the cling film, the material creates a lot of texture without too much manipulation, and so the amount of small detail that can be produced is quite substantial. I have also come to realise how little it takes for texture to be created on the plate, even small amounts of glue that have dried can produce some intricate and unusual results. I would like to try to make a few plates using small amounts of materials to see how the ink and paper respond to it. But in addition to the prints created in the printing press, I also produced another body of ‘prints’ in the process of inking up the plate. After applying the ink to the plate, a lot of it needs to be taken away so that the ink doesn’t gather on the paper and ruin the print. Newsprint on top of the plate allowed me to rub over the top to remove the ink, and the results were really interesting. Not only did they begin to pick up the textures of the plate, but the top layers of colour which had been applied. What I also like about these prints is how that each one is unique, as different textures and colours become highlighted in each one.
Travel drawings
Textures Responses to sound Free writing Frustration Ideas generation Headaches Sensation drawings Visual facts This book contains a lot of tension. This past week has been very frustrating for me, and the beginning of this process of filling a book was seen with scepticism. Over this period the frustration was fuelled by my thinking that I wasn’t making work. I procrastinated by writing and drawing what I felt in addition to loosing myself in books. Upon reflection I now realise that I was still creating work, just in a way that I didn’t initially recognise. And research is a valuable tool for me so reading books and journals is always useful. Looking back I now see how it is another element of my somewhat varied working practice. |
