During my attempt to make an urban landscape I had, on a whim, placed a piece of cotton thread on the plate before printing. I really liked the distinct line that it produced as a mask especially with the combination of dark blue and bright orange. The quality of the line reminded me of the flowing quality of line produced with continuous line drawing and blind drawing. I wanted to see whether there was a possibility of using thread placed on the inked plate to draw with.
I printed a layer of the sonic orange and then cleaned and re-inked the plate with indigo. It was onto this indigo that I placed the threads as a mask for the drawing which would show in orange against the blue. I tried a simple drawing based on one of the seagull sketches I did on Ischia. This was much more difficult than I had anticipated. The cotton thread was springy and didn't want to stay where I wanted to put it. I thought that the tacky ink would hold it in place but the problem was getting it to go where I wanted it without touching and disturbing the layer of ink on the plate. The thread had to go down on the first attempt because moving it would have left a mark. The result was a very abstracted drawing of a bird - the one shown below is a second pass of this print.
I re-inked the plate without cleaning it and had a try at a similar drawing working very rapidly into the plate with a toothpick. You can see the ghost of the previous bird drawing in the background because I didn't clean the plate. The plastic toothpick skittered all over the place on the inked plate with this rapid way of working. The result was scratchy disjointed lines that look less deliberate and more tentative. I much prefer the character of line produced by the thread.
I had the idea that I could use the two different qualities of the lines in the same drawing using the thread to emphasise certain areas. I tried this with another quick sketch. The problem with this was that having drawn first with the toothpick, I had to try to place the thread precisely in the chosen areas - this was simply impossible so the result was just a random line in the middle of the background area. I would be better to do this process the other way round if at all.
At this point I was frustrated and I decided that since the quality of the line produced by the thread was my starting point, I would try just to exploit that without attempting anything representational.
I stuck with the sonic orange and indigo colour scheme as these worked well together and printed in several layers with random arrangements of criss-crossing threads. In some of the prints the threads act as a mask:
In others I have removed the threads after more than one pass through the press and the remaining ink trapped under the threads has produced a line:
I added some yellow to the mix and also added other textures (talc) and masks of torn paper because I knew that the brief called for multiple techniques. The green stared to remind me of plant cell walls - this theme could have been developed further with back drawing but I felt that these were less successful than the simple blue and orange prints so I didnt go any further down that route.
The two prints that I felt were the most successful from this exercise are shown below. They exploit the fact that as the indigo ink becomes thinner on the plate after more than one pass through the press, it fades to a blue grey.
In this print the orange shows through brightly where the threads mask the overprinting with indigo. The indigo areas also show a subtle pattern of thicker lines - this is from re-inking the plate with indigo after a previous print without cleaning the plate - I like this double effect. The registration isn't perfect but is close. Unfortunately the photograph doesn't do this justice - it is much brighter and has more visual impact 'in the flesh'.
The print below was by absolute favourite. This is a ghost print taken onto coated paper after more than one pass through the plate. Most of the indigo ink has been taken off on previous passes so that the orange shines through clearly. I really like the haloes of indigo around the threads. Between the threads there is a lovely grainy texture from the remaining indigo ink where it hasn't removed evenly from the plate on previous passes. This is an added texture bonus. The whole thing looks as if it is illuminated from behind because of the pale orange.
I suppose it could be argued that this print doesn't really fulfill the brief of multiple techniques. However, the OCA does encourage us to adapt the briefs to our needs. It could be argued that this print demonstrates the technique of masking and the application of texture. I'm prepared to risk it !
What I learnt
- Thread produces nice lines but is difficult to handle with precision
- Indigo and sonic orange are a good colour combination
- Keep things simple - identify what it is that attracts you and exploit that without over-thinking - respond to what happens on the plate rather than planning too rigidly
No comments:
Post a Comment