Print 1. Project 4: Still life – Experimentation

Re-examining the bowl.

I’m finding the start of this printing course agonising.  Everything is new to me and I’m working much more slowly than I feel I should and being very painstaking in my planning and results.  This aspect of my personality is something I’m trying to overcome as I’m keen to become more fluid in my print interpretations.

So, with this in mind, I looked back at some of my recent work.  One or two of my prints are showing some evolving in thinking, some loosening of control, but I’m still far too precise in much of what I’m producing.

I love the final bowl print of my last post.  It’s very clear, clean, accurate, shows a little technical skill (as I have picked up a lot of info in this assignment) but, in equal measure, it’s unexciting with no real engaging presence.

So I turned the music up loud, mixed blue/black oil paint and translucent orange and got to work on just ‘something’, anything really.  My criteria were to include a bowl, do something that was unplanned and wait to see what came out before judging my result.  Strictly speaking it doesn’t fit in exactly with this module but I’m hoping my tutor will see some serious effort being made to move away from my norm and experiment in other ways.

Display, 29×21.5cm – printed to edge of paper, 250gsm Arches paper.

The blue/black paint was rolled randomly in various directions onto the print plate.  The paper was soaked and towel dried before this first colour was laid down.  The surface of the paper lifted in parts when removing the plate.  I really haven’t come to grips with this wet/dry concept.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  I think I didn’t leave it in the water long enough to soak through so the surface was damp and separated from the inner paper layers, maybe.

Once dry, the print was photocopied, reversed and the lines were drawn on the copy.  A darker thicker consistency blue/black was mixed, the initial print was laid over this and the photocopy on the top.  This was used as the template to draw and transfer the lines that follow the edges of the initial rolled paint and the bowls.

The bowls weren’t prominent enough so I drew them in with a Sharpie pen.

Translucent orange was rolled on to a print plate as per the first layer but with complete, uneven, coverage over the total surface area.  The paper was overlaid, dry this time, and I attempted to transfer the ink without using the print press.  Fairly impossible due to the thickness of the paper but a small amount worked.  I turned the print over and, using the roller with the remaining paint on it, I applied this directly to the paper.

Is this classed as a print?  I’m not sure, but the result has given me some satisfaction.

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