My partner and I have exchanged prints.
Mine, taken from the paper pulp models exploring my clenched fist, was etched using a soft ground onto zinc and then further etched with aquatint to give a variety of tone.
My partner, Julie’s screen print, stemmed from her research into the interior of lungs. The colours used were chosen because of her investigation into the colours within blood and raw meat. The shape of Julie’s print has perfect clean lines, and is very successful. I have needed to think hard about how to work with this and translate into my print language. I have considered laying dark lines of varying thickness and varied tone across the print, a little like twigs, obscuring the image slightly. But I have abandoned this idea. I have settled on the idea of multiplication (as in cells dividing) and addition of details and tone to the wonderful shape, she has created.
It's been fantastic having access to the blog and seeing what everyone else is doing and how they are feeling about the project. There is some very interesting work in progress. I haven't seen Patricia since we worked at my studio, but we have been in phone contact. I have produced six more grounds in different colours. Patricia and I have decided that the ghost prints are probably of more use than the first run off due to the colours being more subtle and not drowning out the screen print.
It's good to see the results of the gum arabic transfer prints that some of the other artists are using. I've just started using this method for some of my other work. I find it versatile.
I've been thinking about the images posted here by my collaborative partner Sue, which I saw for the first time two days ago. I found it really interesting to talk about our different approaches to work.
Sue's work invoked for me ideas of how uncertain we can feel about what choices to make day by day, and of how great the pressures to be seen to conform to an accepted social norm can be, particularly for young women.
The print I made yesterday seems finally to have got nearer to my sense of the vibrant emptiness a place can convey.
Gaza – A Place under attack.
My first piece of work for my partner took some time to resolve because as I was working on the image I was also watching the images from the war in Gaza unfold on the news. So many innocent children killed, appallingly injured and traumatised, so many families horribly bereaved, so many deep psychological scars inflicted.
I began to draw – trying to find a response.
The temptation is to continue making images but I really need to get down to consolidating some stuff to finalise this project. I plan to get into the centre tomorrow and complete the lino print series. I have also set up my own a-n blog as I seem to have taken up a more than my share of this one.
