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Why use photoshop for doing my drawings/plans for degree show?

I wanted to try out photoshop out because it gives me a 3D feel to my planning of my degree show. Looking in this perspective of drawing, it has helped me to plan within a 3D environment because it feels more real with a good idea of colours that I will use to paint the walls of my room. This allows me to change around some of the components of the room giving me a good idea on what I could change and what could be added to making this room better and maybe much stronger.

How has this helped me in comparison to normal drawing?

I do feel that when we draw on normal paper with either pencil or ink it is more tricky to keep adding more things to the drawing whereas on photoshop, you have the option to change anything. Whether it is distorting apart of the room’s wall or adding more wooden beams or anything, you can change anything you want in a 3D feel environment.

This does give me a better idea than drawing on what the structuring of the dark room will look like and with brighter colours than what drawing could give. I will keep using this method of drawing to help me change ideas and layouts that I want for my dark room but I will keep doing the normal sketches in my sketchbook.

 


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Why try to recreate indexical traces of my own?

Well… because indexical traces is one of my themes I wanted to try something new out of my own. We get indexical traces everywhere but we dont always notice them when we live through our daily life being mostly busy and too busy to see all of them.

Before doing my house cleaning, I wanted to try live through indexical traces of my own by purposely leaving mess around for a whole month to see what kind of build up we get.Each buildup of bacteria or dust and other things create a record of a life for one month and that would show within these types of messes.

What do these examples prove?

Each buildup of bacteria or dust and other things create a record of a life for one month and that would show within these types of messes. All these mess’s consist of a person ‘i.e being me and my father’ eating something or touching a surface and at the same time creating our mark in history. These examples are also sought to be memory traces of a moment in time where we have distort a surface making it messy or just by using it.

What have I gained by this exercise?

I believe that I have gained valuable inspirations on looking closer at what we don’t always see in front of us. It has taught me a closer depth of thinking and analysis on the term ‘Indexical Traces’ because it has enabled me to discover the different trace or marks that we make in our lives that we tend to forget about.

compared to this excercise, my Dissertation on the term indexical trace made me think of it like a mere fragment of this term. This exercise has broaden my mind a lot since doing my Dissertation and has enabled me to actually experience indexical traces more. Although I have already experienced the term memory traces a lot with my girlfriend and the past, I never really gained further experience with the indexical side.

 

 

 


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Why look into Ai WeiWei?

I wanted to try find more artists who do work with vases whether its a vase sculpture or a vase print. Not only I have managed to find someone who makes art with vases but I also managed to find someone who is actually Chinese. Ai WeiWei makes art works in connection with China and he exhibits his art works in western countries such as America, England and other western countries whereas exhibiting in China is strictly forbidden.

Ai WeiWei makes art works such as turning a 5000 BC vase into a contemporary art piece by dipping ancient pots into a bright ceramic glaze like yellow, blue, red etc. His message in this respects is pointed towards China not reserving China’s old cultural heritage and just keep carrying on building modernised places. This is his way of putting the message across when China continues to destroy cultural heritage and then he destroys a priceless vase but at the same time he makes it into an artwork.

How can he relate to my vase prints and vase readymade?

Well I would say that he clearly does relate in some aspects because his vases give a clear deep meaning behind the surfaces of his vases. The glaze that he uses, covers up the original 5000 BC design of the vase but then lays on the modernised ceramic glaze. This message points directly towards how China manages their ancient cultural heritage sites and sometimes use these sites to build modernised apartments or industries.

My Vase Readymade gives a deep meaning behind two old couples that have left their trace within the surfaces of my pair of two readymade vases. My vases hold a record on dust or dirt and maybe even bacteria carried by the old couple who once occupied their old apartment. My vase prints symbolize china culture and stencils have always been a big thing in China for people to make on, ‘its an art alone’.

I use their old cultural methods of stencil making into my own work but not only that, I use them to print through to make my nice prints. In my previous post you will clearly see my meaning behind my vases where you have the china connection and also the english connection in printing inks and methods.

Are there any signs of indexical traces within his process?

I would say there are most definitely alot of signs of indexical traces within his objects and processes of works. Ai WeiWei used a lot of old vases dating back as far as the (Han Dynasty, 3000-5000 BC). Now there are in no doubt thousands upon thousands of memory traces as well as indexical traces within the surfaces of these vases that he uses.

All these ancient vases that he uses, actually could hold a record of 5000 years and god knows how many things you might see within that time…. The interesting part about these works, is that he destroys the entire record of 5000 years to make a new contemporary style artwork in which he covers the vases in a ceramic glaze.

5000 years of memories are wiped clean, as if someone had wiped your memory away and replaces it with something brand new just like the bright colour ceramic glazes he uses. At the same time he uses his indexical action to distort a surface on an object when he uses the ceramic glaze and there becomes a distant memory trace as well as an indexical trace of himself.


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A new vase stencil design?

I would say that it was not easy getting hold of this design as it was quite a blurry vase when I first saw it online. So I had to just take it anyway and play around with it on photoshop and to be honest it really did help me out tremendously with my new vase stencil.

How did this new vase stencil work out?

Well it did work out fine on photoshop because all I had to do was make the stencil into a grey scale so that the stencil turns black colour than the grey colour. After that I delete any areas which may contain some writing next to the picture as I was not really allowed to copy the vase stencil as it had to be bought. So now that the image was ready to print out, I made a phone call to Edinburgh printmakers for them to try print out my new vase stencil on acetate.

Next plan of action?

I had to wait for them to print the vase stencil out for over 1 week before I could do anything else. So from my last post that I did with my other recent design vase, I just done them nice vase prints whilst I waited for this new design to come along. Once it did come along after 1 week, I just projected the vase acetate stencil onto silk screen using photo emulsion and came out very clearly to how I wanted it to look.


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A recent vase stencil design?

Yeah… I would say that I not only picked out another of my vase stencils but I have also made quite a challenge for myself. Before doing any of this vase printing I had already made over 7 or 8 vase stencils whilst being in China because I already knew what I was gonna do the time I got back to england.

One of my vase stencils, I would say is the most complicated of them all to try and print because of the high detail around the boarder of this vase. Somehow I had to try workout how I am gonna get this onto acetate to print with.

How did this new vase stencil work out?

Well first of all, I had to trim more off the original stencil to try getting it to look like a vase shape rather than a vase cut out of the paper. Once the edges around the vase were trimmed off, it looked more of a real vase and was ready to be scanned in the printer to be printed onto acetate.

This next part was very tricky for Glen the technician because he had to divide the vase up into 3 bits of acetate. It wasn’t easy to do this but Glen manage to line up all the 3 bits of acetate together to make up the full vase stencil and was ready to be projected onto silkscreen with the photo emulsion.

Next plan of action for this Design?

Whilst waiting for this new vase stencil to develope I have already started to print the background of this vase design in different colours so that i can be prepared for the second stencil to go on top. After the the vase stencil has been successfully transferred onto the silkscreen, Glen will wash off the remains of the photo emulsion and then I can prepare to print through it. In this post you will clearly see the successful results.

 


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