Wednesday 23rd January - Photography

When we had been doing the workshops and experiencing all the different pathways, during the 3D one with Kim, I had made a wire drawing from a sketch I had done at Blackburn Museum  because I had wanted all my work to have some kind of connection, and not to consist of completely random themes and pieces of work. For my portfolio, I wanted to mount the drawing onto something e.g. paper, card I wasn't really too sure how to do it. Jo suggested that I don't mount it, and put it in my sketchbook, and instead, photograph it in the studio using light and creating shadows with different colours. It had been a while since I had done any real photography.
When I first got to the studio, most of the space was being used, so I had to try and set up in a small corner which was quite difficult. On top of that, when I went and got a camera, the battery was nearly flat. Then, I couldn't quite get the lights and flash to work. I had to play around with the settings on the camera to find out which ones worked the best for what I wanted to do, but the thing is, I didn't want to play around. I just wanted to get on with it and have some decent pictures at the end.
When I did manage to get the flash to work, and took a picture using it, it was so bright that my drawing wasn't even visible! 

When I figured out how to tone the flash down, I couldn't get a shadow, despite the fact that there were lights and shadows should have been created. What I had to do was turn off the big lights and use the light on my phone. Due to the fact that there were no other lights, and perhaps because this was not as bright as the big one, a shadow was created! 

I was really pleased with the results of using my phone as a light to create shadows, but I was annoyed at the fact that it hadn't worked with the big light.

I used gels to create the effect of coloured lighting. This gave the false impression that the drawing was the colour that the light was. 

What I had wanted to happen hadn't, but what had happened was some light drawing. I hadn't realized that the shutter speed had somehow slowed down, and I had been waving my phone around in front of it. The result was a strange set of photos.

It was a creative mistake. If I had tried to do this on purpose, it wouldn't have looked like this. It was a happy accident which I am pleased with.

I felt like it had been kind of pointless going to the photography studio to take the pictures, but then again, I was happy with the results. The pictures didn't turn out exactly how I wanted them to, but they appealed to me in a different way.  

Tuesday 22nd January - More Screen Printing

Danielle had taken all the drawings I had done from the magazines and the ones I had done of my sister, and cut out the patterned sections and put them onto a screen. This was where I had to turn my brightness and colour down and use neutral tones, which would therefore give me a chance to show the colour through other techniques such as sewing, stitch, beading, embroidery etc. I did however dye a few colourful backgrounds just because I did't want this set of prints to completely lack brightness. 

I wanted this to end up as being more than just a pile of screen prints as some of the other ones had ended up to be. I wanted to actually make something from these, such as perhaps a patchwork quilt, hanging or maybe even some jewellery. However, due to the fact that the patterns had been cut out in curvy shapes, I felt that they would be awkward to work with so I cut out some square and circle windows to print through. This way, the patterns would print in the shape of the window that was put on top. I preferred this, and also thought that it looked a lot more professional and effective. They also became a lot easier to work with and make something out of.  

Tuesday 15th January - Screen Printing

As my figure motif had been exhausted, I was now taking the patterns from the drawings I had done and screen printing with them. Usually when I print, I get a lot of prints onto paper but not as much as I'd like onto fabric. The problem with this is that I am then restricted as to what I can do to develop the prints on paper so I would rather have them on fabric so I can then sew into them, quilt them, make lots of little samples and sew them into a little patchwork hanging. I also dyed some bright backgrounds, but not many. I do love my colour, and this is clearly evident in all my work til date, but I need to tone it down so it balances, so I also need some calmer backgrounds with subtle colours.
To make it more personal in a way, and to show some skill I suppose, I also mixed up my own printing inks. 
The process for making your own printing inks:-
Mix the base paste which is clear, with a couple of drops of pigment dye. The darker or brighter that you want the colour to be, the more pigment dye to add. This way I was able to control these factors. I mixed up 4 calm colours/shades compared to what I had been using before. My palette was limited which was a good thing so this way I would be able to get all the colour in using thread and stitch. 

Another task that was looming over my head was to prepare my work/portfolio for interviews. The last visiting lecturer that we had was a tutor from Camberwell, and she told us that it is not necessary that our work is mounted. They are perfectly capable of looking at it how it is, but I feel that if I was to listen to her and not mount my work, I would appear to be a lazy student who does not really care about her work and the way it appears to others. I think that a really good piece of work can end up not looking as good if it is not mounted properly. Work needs to be shown off as much as it can by a good mount job. 

Wednesday 9th January - Pathway/Tutorial

I found out that my work has been selected for moderation! This has been happening since I was in school. My work is selected every year and it kind of adds to the pressure. In a way, it could be a good thing because I will be getting a bit of extra help as all the drawing qualification work needs to be separated and mounted, but I would also be using this for my portfolio. 
Some people are starting new work, but I feel that I have enough work as it is, and it would be a better idea if I improved the work that I already have. I had a huge pile of prints from when I first did screen printing and a lot of photocopies of the image that was put onto the screen. One way of almost condensing the pile of work was weaving that was suggested to me by Claire. She told me that this would take 2 images but after the weave was complete, the images would not be recognizable. I didn't want it where the images were not clear, so I tried doing the weave in a different way where the images were more visible. This took a lot longer and in my opinion, it looked a lot better, but the problem was that I couldn't flip it over to tape it all together so that it would hold, It was quite flimsy which is not a good thing. Claire took most of it apart and showed me the other way of doing the weave which meant that the images would not be as clear as I wanted them to be, but the advantage was that it held together a lot better than the first time. It kind of hurts when you look at it though. 

Also, I had previously burnt some fabrics and plastics with Danielle, and it was amazing to see  the different ways that they burnt and the reactions they had to the heat. One particular fabric that I liked the burnt look of was was Twinkle. Something that I thought of doing with these little samples was to sew them onto the prints that I did of my sister. This way, it would be developing the prints and the burnt samples of fabric would be used. I wanted to sew them on top of the print in the shape of the drawing and fill in as much detail as I could with stitch. This also means that I am incorporating textiles techniques into my work as well. 
I colour coded the samples of fabric so that the same colour samples in all the different shades were together and being used on the same print. 
The bad thing about doing this was that it took me the whole day. It was so hard to try and get all the little details in right, and also because the fabric had been burnt, it was really textured, and hard to sew over and get under the foot of the machine. I had to keep lifting the foot and putting it over the place that I wanted to sew over. 

I finally finished it. It turned out really well. I thought it looked very effective, but on the other hand, I felt that maybe the whole figure theme had been exhausted now. It had started when I first started doing the figure drawings from magazine cut outs and it had ended up with my sister which made it more personal to me. It was time to take this further, but in a different way. I decided to stick with the images I already had, but instead of using the figure motif, I take the patterns I have already drawn in the images and do some screen printing with them onto different papers and fabrics, using toned down colours as I feel that I have used a lot of bright colours and I need to have a balance of the two. I need some calm colours to go with the bright ones. Then, I would bring in colour through stitch instead of the actual inks and backgrounds.

 I think that the back looks better than the front. Originally, I would have disregarded the back and not even had a look at it, but it has an intricacy about it that just draws you in. The features on the front side of the print that I have sewed into look naive, almost like an inexperienced person has drawn them, and I don't want my work to look like that. There are a couple of paper stitches I have previously done where I have left the features out, and they turned out better. 

  

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