Tuesday 1 September 2015

Diploma Module 1 Chapter 2 – Use of Sketchbook

So, ‘Gulls, with an emphasis on shadows’ and the start of a sketchbook.  It will be A5 size and to retain flexibility will be handmade, with the cover and method of binding probably being decided on completion.  There is, therefore, no restriction on the type, colour or weight of paper/material used…though after a trip to Seawhite’s factory shop there is currently a plentiful supply of 140gms extra wet strength!

Silhouettes, as Sian suggested, seemed a good place to start.   Image 2 is a photograph of a Manx herring gull taken on the sea wall at Ramsey.

Image 2 - Ramsey gull walking

This was loaded into Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and viewed using Filters>Artistic to see if any design possibilities presented themselves.  The Poster Edges filter enhanced the image providing more pronounced internal and external lines (Image 3),

Image 3 - Ramsey gull walking posterised

which were traced (Image 4)

Image 4 - Ramsey gull tracing_edited-1 

and then made into a layered cardboard representation of the gull (Image 5).

Image 5 - Ramsey gullcardboard cutout

An attempt was made to colour the reverse of the gull with papers to match the colours on the photograph.  The shades of grey proved almost impossible to replicate so it was coloured with gouache, black drawing ink and yellow cut papers (Image 6).

Image 6 - Ramsey gull painted

A series of monoprints was made from the layered cardboard gull, laying the paper to be printing ontop of the gull and then brayering.  As the relief of the cardboard layers was not pronounced (380 mic card), heavy weight papers did not produce a good printed image (Image 7).

Image 7 - Ramsey gull carboard cutout monoprint on 140gsm paper

Over-inking the brayer was also disappointing (Images 8 and 9).

Image 8 Ramsey gull cardboard cutout monoprint overinked 1

Image 9 -  Ramsey gull cardboard cutout monoprint overinked 2

Lighter weight papers were more successful, i.e. 45gsm layout paper and 75gsm printer paper.  Some of the more interesting prints are below (Images 10 - 15).

Image 10 - Ramsey gull cutout monoprint 1

Image 11 - Ramsey gull cutout monoprint 2

The shadow effect in Images 10 and 11 look promising.

Image 12 - Ramsey gull cutout monoprint 3

Image 13 - Ramsey gull cutout monoprint 4

Image 14 - Ramsey gull cutout monoprint 5

Image 15 - Ramsey gull cutout monoprint 6

I particularly liked the multiple image prints  which are in keeping with my research title.

Still familiarising myself with this shape, an outline of the gull was made with water and a brush.  While this outline was still wet the it was emphasized with black drawing ink using a 0.5mm technical drawing pen (Image 16).

Image 16 - Ramsey gull water then ink outline

This might have given a more interesting result if I had used a thicker pen or other drawing implement with more ink.

A hot glue gun stencil/mask was made of the gull (Image 17). The thin strings of glue produced when making the stencil were left, luckily, as these gave very interesting images. Gelli prints were made using a home-made gelli plate – see calligraphycards-shazinoz blog gelli plate recipe.

Image 17 - Ramsey gull hot glue gun stencil

The most promising images were those produced from the ghost print (Images 18 - 20) taking care not to over ink the brayer.

Image 18 - Ramsey gull hot glue gun stenctil print 1

Image 19 - Ramsey gull hot glue gun stenctil print 2

Image 20 - Ramsey gull hot glue gun stenctil print 3

Note that taking a monoprint by placing the paper on top of the stencil and brayering on top was not successful as the stencil has no give  and does not lend itself to this method of printing (Image 21).

Image 21 - Ramsey gull bayered monoprint

One of the monoprints from the layered cardboard gull with a shadow gull behind was backed with iron-on Vilene and part stitched in raised chain band (Image 22 and 23).  Raised stem stitch could probably have worked equally well to give a feathered effect.

Image 22 - Ramsey gull cardboard cutout monoprint  stitched 1

Image 23 - Ramsey gull cardboard cutout monoprint  stitched 2

ToDo - make a print block from both of these stitches. 

The effect of light and shadow was tested on the layered cardboard gull.

Natural light – Image 24

Image 24 - Ramsey gull cutout natural light

Lit from the side with daylight bulb and photo taken from front – Image 25.  I like the multiple shadows this produces, which might imply more than one light source on any piece of work to get the maximum effect from the shadows produced.

Image 25 - Ramsey gull cutout lit side taken front

Lit from the side with daylight bulb and photo taken from the side – Image 26

Image 26 - Ramsey gull cutout lit side taken side

Lit from above with daylight bulb and photo taken from the front – Image 27

Image 27- Ramsey gull cutout lit above taken front

ToDos:

- look into methods of producing translucent papers using wax and oil.  I have already used this technique successfully with acrylic wax on tissue paper in my work with bees but think it needs further investigation to see the results with other papers/materials.  Also investigate other materials that will give transparency.

- investigate shadow puppets/puppetry

- more research on light and shadow produced from different objects – solid, transparent, translucent, woven, outline, etc.