Variations: Masks and Multicolours - Landscape

When you can see the possibilities of this process, make a print depicting a landscape of a townscape using the print of different items. You will have to be creative here and translate the real textures of the landscape into the impression of your chosen objects


The challenge for this part of the exercise was to interpret some of the textures I had experimented with and to use them to represent textures of the landscape. My first thought was to use the sprinkles of talc to represent stars in the night sky and to use leaves or vegetation to represent trees as well as the holey/lacey fabric to make an impression to look like the 'patchwork quilt' effect of fields on the hillside. My attempts at this were not really successful - the colours and textures didn't really give the desired effect and registration was poor. 

First attempt using textures to represent landscape oil-based ink
on cartridge paper. Not successful the green is very dark so
the texture of the hillside doesn't show

Second attempt using three layers and using grasses to try to
represent trees - registration is poor and the textures are not as
distinct as expected. Printed on Japanese paper.

I was quite enamoured of the talc effect and I though that another way I could use this would be to use a multicoloured base layer and then overprint in a very dark colour using the talc as a mask to give the impression of fireworks in a night sky. This thought triggered nostalgia for happy hours spent as a child colouring paper with coloured wax crayons and covering a coloured base layer with lack crayon before scratching into it. to reveal the colours beneath.

I printed a base layer containing patches of process yellow and hawthorn sonic orange fluorescent ink as well as leaving an area of white. I then overprinted using Prussian blue masking out an area of the yellow at the bottom of the plate in a geometric approximation to an urban skyline. I sprinkled three areas of talc onto the upper part and scratched trails away from these using cotton buds. On an impulse I also picked up a piece of thread that was hanging around in my bag and coiled that up on the plate too. After printing this layer I overprinted again using black using a slightly offset negative mask over the sky and a few small rectangles as positive masks to represent illuminated windows in the urban buildings.

Three layer masked monoprint using talc, cotton
thread and drawing into the ink with cotton buds
to represent  an urban landscape with fireworks

Second impression (ghost print) of the above
print with rearrangement of the thread

The offset masking of the building shapes worked quite well and I really liked the mask effect created by the thread which gave a much more distinct mark than I had expected given how narrow the thread was. The talc fireworks looked appropriately fiery in orange and white. The disappointing thing was that the Prussian blue was not sufficiently opaque to cover the fact that the base layer was multicoloured. 

I decided to continue with the urban landscape theme. I had recently visited the Georgia O'Keefe exhibition at Tate Modern and I decided to use one of the photographs of New York by Alfred Stieglitz (O'Keefe's partner) as a starting point. Click Here to view the photograph The image in question is a view from the artist's window over Hoboken. I chose it because it contained several textures which I could try to interpret but the shapes were relatively simple. 

I decided that some of the tapes I had used at the Leeds Workshop would be good to represent some of the textures I had seen in the photograph. I used foil tape and mesh tape as will as cutting shapes out of duck tape and using strips of masking tape. I printed in multiple layers and tried various types of paper including cartridge, coated paper and Japanese paper. Some of the prints were more successful then others but ultimately I wasn't really satisfied with any of these prints. Having set out with a fairly fixed idea of what I wanted to achieve and getting a different result led to disappointment. I also made the mistake of forgetting to add cobalt driers to the stay open inks so they were really slow to dry. This meant that the prints got stickier and sticker and messier and messier with each subsequent layer. 
In addition to multilayer printing and texture I also tried back drawing to emphasise certain features in some of the prints (see next section). I retrospect it would have been better to offset the image onto a monoprint plate before printed as it would have allowed greater opportunity to alter and control the final images. 

These prints were all taken using my bottle jack press - this press is really more suited to relief printing than monoprints as it doesn't generate as much pressure as an etching press. 

Textured (collagraph-type) plate on cardboard constructed using
 masking tape, meshtape, duck tape and foil tape

The sky was printed first by masking off the urban skyline area.
Then a direct print was taken over this using the textured plate and
a mixture of ultramarine and black. This print is on coated paper

Second pass (ghost) print as above but with the addition of back-drawing
in black for windows. Coated paper. 

I felt that the image was too dark so tried overprinting a third layer of
light yellow in selected areas. In this one I also employed back-drawing.
The wet ink in the sky area immediately picked up the yellow ink.
I hadn't masked this area off - I did so in subsequent prints. This print is
on cartridge paper.

Ghost print as above but without back-drawing and with masking of the
sky. Japanese paper.

Another attempt on cartridge paper. The mesh tape skyscraper
is lost in the dark sky on this one. There is grey underprinting on the
buildings before the textured layer was applied. 

I tried to highlight the mesh skyscraper on the right by over-printing in
a paler colour to pick it out of the dark sky. Unfortunately the overprinting
on the crumpled foil-tape building at the left side has covered over
some of the texture.

Another ghost print on coated paper 

I finished this exercise feeling frustrated that I had not produced a print that I was happy with. However this is all part of the learning process. I had learnt several things not to do and had also realised that it is not always easy to translate an image you have in your mind's eye into a print as unexpected things happen when you are printing. This is part of the excitement of printing but can also get frustrating if you are too rigid about what you require as an outcome. So far I have produced my best work when starting out without a fixed idea and responding to the first prints I produce to take me in a certain direction. 

What I learnt 

• Not to be too rigid with planning and expectations but respond to the prints as they develop
• Remember to add cobalt driers if printing with 'stay open' inks - especially if working with multiple layers
• Try to understand whether an ink is opaque or not before overprinting with it - opaque if you want it to completely cover the underneath layer. Translucent if you want colour mixing or or texture to show through. 
• Remember the option of offsetting textures onto monoprint plates which allows you to subsequently manipulate further

To work on

• Learn more about the characteristics of your inks - translucency/opacity
• more attempts at producing figurative images will be needed.