Blue

This is my blue drawing for the drawing project. It is based on my boyfriend and his artificial eye, having lost his real eye a good few years ago. It is one of my favourite things about him and the colour itself is a really vibrant blue so I found it fitting perfectly with this brief.

Drawing Project

We were given a really interesting project by our drawing tutor Roisin. We had to pick an alive artist and a dead artist and adapt to their style of drawing through a series of mark making and then produce final pieces. For my dead artist I chose Oskar Kokoscha and for my alive artist I chose William Kentridge. We also had to do one drawing on the word "blue"

Photographs in Black and White

photographs

Photography Class

We have a photography class every Tuesday afternoon with Martin Healy. For this class we were given a brief in which we have to take photographs, related to our projects and in the end two of them will be chosen for a class book. We are also shown slide shows and videos on photography which is very interesting.
Since my project at the moment is on speech impediments, I found this a rather difficult subject to photograph. However I began thinking about the feelings associated with my speech impediment, how it made me feel insecure, feelings of being trapped etc. I began photographing myself in a mirror, angleing it so that it would only capture a small part of my face, with more of the background. I tried to create the feeling I was trapped in the mirror.

Woodcut

For these 3 weeks I am doing woodblock with Sercan. As my take on the brief is very personal, I wanted the image itself to be personal so I drew a comic book style self portrait. I was thinking about how I felt when I did make a mistake in my words, and I almost felt as if I was being choked. I then drew an image of a mans muscely hand coming in from the right hand side and choking me. Even though I really liked the image, It would confuse others as it didnt emphasis the meaning of image. I then drew in some lichtenstein-like "pop" word bubbles, with words like my stutters. So for when I got a mental block i chose to put in a silence - "..." and when I stuttered I just put in fragmented words - "ch-ch-ch". I decided that this picture was still quite dark with the choking hand and the scared expression. I decided to think about what I'm scared about in relation to my speech. I'm very very scared of public speaking and speaking in social situations. This idea also ties in nicely with the protest title as public speaking would be a big part of this. I then replaced the image of the hand with myself clutching a microphone with the terrified expression on my face. Im using 5 colours in this woodcut (including black and white) using a light blue, a dark blue and a deep red.

Protest and Humour

We got the 2 projects titles last week - "Protest" and "Humour", we must pick one however we can combine them if we want. I think I will be picking the title "Protest". I began to do a mindmap, wanting my project to be a personal one as the last one I did was rather general.
I grew up with many speech impediments when I was younger. I had a lisp, stutter, couldn't pronouce "ch"'s, couldnt pronouce "p"'s, got stuck on words,i.e, I got a mental block in which I would have to change words around in my head before I could say them out loud. I went to speech therapy for many years and successfully managed to get rid of my lisp and the most part of my stutter. I can now pronouce "ch's" and "p's". However I still have the odd stutter and, experience a mental block at least once a day. As a result, I am not that confident speaking out loud with people who I dont know that well at all. I also get embarrassed and ashamed rather easily when someone comments on my speech.
Thats where I bring in the theme protest. Its feels as if my body is in protest against my mind. I can say anything I want in my mind but somehow my body restricts me..

Digital media for Etching

I began playing around with the photographs I had taken of my prints and the photographs I initally took. I super imposed my black and white etching of the pipe on top of the photograph of the mossy wall and rusty pipe. I think that this combination work and brings the etching to life as it was a little flat on its own.




In this version I took a photograph of a grimy red brick wall and super imposed it on top of my print. I changed the opacity settings so it was only barely visible on top of it. I then used the cutout option in the filter gallery which I think gives a more stronger line, similar to a woodcut.



In the last one I took a photograph of one of my prints that didnt work out that well. I had stuck a piece of brown paper over the pipe, but it slipped in the press and it wasnt very absorbant with the ink. I photoshopped in a transparent green over the leaves and and then photoshopped a detailed coloured version of the pipe from a more successful print on top of the brown paper. I really liked this effect of the diffent layers.

                

Etching Experimentation.

I started to experiment with my etchings on Thursday. I began experimenting with different colour roll ups, monoprinting, drypoint, various papers etc.

Etchings. B&W

These are my black and white etchings, I was quite happy with them but I didnt quite achieve the tonal qualities that I had in my drawings so I think next week I will re-etch my plate with a darker tonal quality and hopefully it will work out

Sketchs in preparation for etching

I began sketching ideas from the photographs I took, I settled on a composition I really liked and then had to get the tonal qualities right as I had a lot of detail and crosshatching in my image. I decided on the 3rd sketch, with the varied tonal qualities in the background.  Then I started to draw this onto my plate.

Photography in preparation for etching.

Etching

We started etching this week for the first time. It involves covering a sheet of zinc with wax and drawing your image into the wax, then dipping the plate in acid at different times, so the acid "bites" into the drawing allowing you to print. I found this printing process extremely interesting and enjoyable and you can see the difference in the quality of line between drypoint and etching. Sticking to my original idea of deterioration of structures and how everything eventually breaks down, I began looking at more broken structures around me and on my journeys.

Digital Media Work

 

We were thought the basics of photoshop in the first few classes of digital media. We learned how to layer images, make patterns, change the colour/contrast etc which I found very interesting and helpful and gave me new ideas. This is one of my photographs of an umbrella which I edited on photoshop, I gave the back ground a muted purple/grey colour and emphasised the green ares. I then used luminosity for the umbrella itself to stand out. I then made ghost copies of the skeleton of the umbrella which I layered on top of the background which I think gave it more depth and added to my idea of broken objects and deterioration.

In this picture, I scanned in my lithograph print and I changed the contrast and swapped the background from white to multicoloured geometrical segments to fit around the skeleton of the umbrella. I made the colours different and fade in areass so that it was natural and less artificial.

In this version I decided to see how my image would have worked as a woodcut. I contrasted the black and white of the original image much more and then added in red scratchs over umbrella itself, I gave the background a plain mustard yellow background to compliment the simple colour palette of black white red and yellow.

In this version I learned how to combine two images, so I took my lithograoh print and super imposed it on top of one of my photographs. I then played around with brightness levels and opacity, so that even though the print was on top on the photograph layer you could still see the photograph through the print.

 

 

Completed lithographs.

I used the lithograph ink on the stone and was able to achieve the crosshatching effect that I obtained in my original drawing. I then took a few of these prints and played around with monoprint, especially on the geometrical shapes present. However I regretted the colours I chose.

Prep Drawings for Litho Stone.

These are some of my prep drawings I was working on while playing around with the composition.

Broken Umbrellas.

I began photographing a broken umbrella that I found on the street after a storm. I really liked the eeriness feeling that came from these images. Their structure reminded me of spiders. I began to research similar structures and came across Louise Bourgeois "Spider" sculptures which I thought were amazing.




Louise Bourgeois - "Spider"