Before going to uni to work on the Riso machine, I had researched The People of Riso and came across Lol Gallimore’s Ink Spill, see below. The pink pink and yellow caught my eye, “Lol aimed to create a sense of fluidity and movement in her prints using simple ink overlays with varying depth and contrast” (People of Print, 2019), after seeing this piece I realised its all int he editing prior to the pint, the use of Gallimore’s editing has considered different areas that may be darker than others, where to allow bold yellow/palest colour through and the layers of the colours themselves. Placing the prints in the machine multiple times per layer makes it bolder and more mixable with the other colours if repeatedly printed straight after.
Lol Gallimore, Ink Spill, 2019.
“Gallimore’s latest project explores fluidity and depth inspired by the patterns in oil spills” (People of Print, 2019), you can see the inspiration of ink spills within her work, though they feel more digital than real life fluid, they still have this movement to them which seems to be accentuated by the use of layers and colour. “Gallimore loves to experiment with beautifully made papers, how the colours and textures overlap and bounce off of one another, how the ink sits on the paper, all the way to what technique will be used to bind the spine” (People of Print, 2019), this quote made me realise there maybe more to use of different papers, inks, colours and the formation, so I wanted to start.
In our print session 17/03/21, we worked on photoshop to edit our images to envision how they would look like as a print – I trialed a cream background with a pink images on top. I was hard to know which kind of pink to use without trying the printer first. From this I got to understand the colours of the inks may change due to over lapping.
Reflection 30/03/21: I won’t be working this way again e.g. the planning of the colours digitally, its no where near as exciting as the actual print – I prefer the unknown!!
22/03/21 I went into uni and booked a 1-1 with Glen to show me how to use the print machine. He took me through the steps of the machine and the colouration with showing me some examples. I had already printed out my edited images of To Bite and the gradient background to use within the print, see below. I wanted the first experimentation to be fairly straight forward, using pink and yellow. – I was amazed at its brightness and its blend of inks together. I felt inspired by Galliomore’s Ink Spill and its blend/layering.
These above are where I am working with my current practice, I wanted to explore them in a different way to projection. These first prints below were very pale and slightly fuzzy but once the machine warmed up, they became detailed and bright, see below. This was such an exciting and quick process which pushed my use of bold colouration (like from Are You Watching?) into a new format. The prints gave the film stills that extra sweet like feel like projection did, but in a more intense way as currently I’m working with black and white in projection, Sweet Tooth B&W, it was good to work in a new material in a more concentrated and minimal format. I liked the control of ink and that these prints were tied to a tight box as with projection you can’t help the image from bursting across the room.
Reflection 20/04/21: After experimenting with Sweet Tooth B&W imagery in my current print, I prefer the look of To Bite above and aim to use it again. It’s more recognisable as to what the image is – breast in mouth, where as Sweet Tooth B&W was too dark and confusing.
I began to experiment with different papers and see which ones work in the machine well and with the ink. I really enjoyed the outcome on white/cream paper. It’s here where I learnt to centralise the two colours to almost pasted in a box together, I play with this and under aligned the two layers to create a pink/yellow shadow in image 2. I also sent this print through the machine twice to see how it would appeared in reference to Gallimore’s and the change of intensity was great, gave the Riso inks more depth – so bright/eye catching.
I did learn that a paper arm can effect the print and smudge the ink.. A bit annoying!
- !!! I aim to also experiment with their display e.g. placement/layout.
I really enjoy the photography in the sun/sunset – warms up the paper/colours.
Reflection 04/05/21: Even though this print was my first ever attempt, I think it’s one of my strongest and I aim to explore a similar outlook of the second completed print which carries ideas of censorship – using a similar black line surrounding the image, creating a box, to make it appear finalised and in line with the other print.
It wasn’t till I began to create did I realise that different papered textures effect the way the ink sits, the ridges from the brown paper almost broke up the dots from the bitmap into collums, see below, this isn’t nesicarily a bad thing, they play to the depth of the image. There was also two different sides to the brown paper one with a shine and one with out. I printed on both sides but I loved the shine, especially in the sun see below, it continues the element of glorification of consumption of the female form which I am currently working with in my practice.
I felt with the cream/white paper it worked most effectively for the use of colour, as Gallimore uses in her prints they allow the colour to stand out and project the movement/fluidity. When it came to trialing coloured paper I wasn’t sure how I’d like them. The imagery/colours are almost lost in the pink and orange paper, but I quite like this – this was an idea I initially has before making. In some ways they accentuated the pinks depth. The blue was very unsuccessful in the blue, appeared patchy and altered the colours to a weird tone, would the blue be better if it trialed it with blue ink? Different shades of blue paper too? One thing I learnt from trialing with coloured paper is that the machine didn’t like the thinness of it that much, it seemed to get stuck and cause the foot of the printer to press down and ruin the paper/original print. See below where the ink has stretched.
After this session in total I printed 38 prints, working with different coloured paper, textures and layers, I love how they’re all different and enjoyed this process. Ideas I have after this first trial:
- Different imagery – work with drawings, actual images rather than just bitmap (may help mix up the texture within the print), images from Are You Watching? – this will help me find an area of work that will fit with my peers as we make our group print portfolio!
- Coloured paper – find better quality paper with different tones (pastel colours will help the ink stand out), paper/card?
- Composition – all layers don’t have be level, work with aligned or unaligned works together and a variety of sizes.
- Inclusion of text/collage as one layer???
Reflection 21/04/21: I have recently begun to use text from Dworkin’s Pornography: Men Possessing Women within the prints I think these work great. It adds more depth/understanding to the image. I am currently trialing layering and colour, as I don’t want the text to dominate the image.
