Longing……For……For……For……

What updates are there with my chosen 4 prints for Pretty’s Exhibition?

Last Thursday I called into Lamden galleries in Ipswich to get 4 mounts made up to go in my 4 frames of my images. So on Saturday I took the time to travel to the shop to pick up my 4 mounts for my frames and thought they looked alright. It was raining outside so I just had to make sure they covered up nicely in a big plastic bag wrapped up with tape.

So once I made it back to my university, I then started to prepare my 4 frames ready to put my mounts and images inside. I placed the mounts inside the frames with the images laying on top and then I can align the images the other side making sure either side are even with the mount board. Once I done that I then secure the images to the mount boards by sticking some parcel tape on them so they do not move within the frame. Also I do this so that the image is in good alignment to the mount board and then I can make the addition numbers, title and signatures look better aligned.

What do I think of them now?

I think they look a million bucks better… ‘just a metaphor’ but really they do look so much better once they have been mounted and framed. I do feel quite pleased with myself in the way that I only had a month to do all of this in good time such as playing with images in photoshop and getting the emulsion right and making sure they are perfectly printed. I just feel relieved but most of all, I have enjoyed the fact of doing this process because process is quite important to me as its memory but also it is discovering something new!

I do feel I have discovered something new in the lines of printing through silkscreen and I want to develope my images more by making more than 2 or 3 layers with different tones of greys or another colour. I do have these ideas and thoughts in mind but as I have said before, I have only just learnt to walk rather than running ahead of myself in the idea that this is the finished product. It will not be the finished product because I am always trying new ways of experimenting with silkscreen so of course I will try do more with these images. Just look forward now to present these 4 images in time for the Pretty’s exhibition.

The Question is… is my work cheap looking?

Today in the group crit, I did get some positive feedback from fellow full-time and part-time classmates in which I thought helped me to think about developing my latest print work. Although… However I did get a comment from one of my tutors about my 4 prints looking cheap because of the way they look like they have been churned out for mass production. But I think that is what printing is all about isn’t it? Once you have the master plate or silkscreen you can then churn out as many as you want in additions of 10/10 or more. But wait a minute? artists have to survive and get paid for the hours and materials involved in making their work right?

So why is it so bad that I start churning out 10 of the same image in a quick range of time? If it means getting my shadow and light detail for my images to show more then I will choose to print through silkscreen instead of doing the old school etchings. I wanted to adapt to some new method and quickest ways in printing out high textured detail of sceneries and objects. This is what I want to do and I will adapt from here on and will not change my printing methods at all… My work is cheap in front of everyone that I know in the room so I guess I will now take a break from there a while and put my thinking cap on.

Reflecting back in the last post I have stated what I had to do to make these images become a reality and out of 1000’s of china visited photographs, I have had to go through selecting some of the most appropriate images for the latest Pretty’s exhibition… I am not a person to recognitionise myself that I have worked hard and did a great job for the work… It is not for the brits to give too much recognition to someone that has worked hard in the process so I do not expect that from anyone. but After all of the processes and waiting that I done for a whole month in planning this, it feels as though it is now a cheap production and a waste of time if that makes sense?…

What to do next?

Not a clue at this minute but I will think about perhaps playing with more than one layer of the same scenic image……I will still maintain to submit my work in frames for Pretty’s Exhibition in order to get some research and thoughts about my curative exhibition project.

Reflecting back to my old etching Called Chinese Venice

What has happened within the process?

well… reflecting back from the last post I made about my prints, I have worked and worked and worked, not to brag… but its really true… I feel quite exhausted to be honest after carrying the large frames yesterday from one end of town to my university. And it does not stop there, I then had to take them to the other side of town to have the frames measured for mount board so that my printed images can be framed etc…

• Adobe Photoshop process

So with the printing side of things, I have played around with Adobe photoshop to change the context of the image. Like I explained already in my last post, I am trying to drag out the shapes and textures from within the images that people don’t always see. I am trying to emphasise the textures and shapings more because in memories we get a vivid outlook on remembering thing and all people do to remember is pick up on shapes, textures and contrasts.

This is what I am trying to express here,,, by using a tool such as ‘stamp’ in photoshop is what makes this image become a reality! If done by etching would take more than a few months to do just 1 image and the shadowing would not be that good compared to the dry-point etching… Trust me I know this because I was once doing etching in my first two years of my BA so as far as I go,,, this is further progress since those old time consuming days!

• Photo Emulsion process

So the next part was doing the print out of these 4 images from the roll of acetate in the printing room and making sure first that my images are at 300DPI and the right size which would be 56cm x 42. So all of this played a crucial part in getting this right so in the end I did manage to get them all printed successfully. So what did I think of them when I printed them out?

I thought that the images looked so clear and immaculate with great resolution and I thought that they even looked great on acetate. So now I was ready to get the technician to put the photo emulsion on the silk screens for me and then wait for them to dry after about 20-30 minutes. But… the photo emulsion was out of date#@!*…. So… I had to buy my own Emulsion plus sensitizer which cost me £27 from Ebay but still was not happy about this as I had to wait for another week longer… Once this was all done I then got the technician to expose the 4 screens with my images but there was something wrong with one image!!!

So there was an error?

Of course like always you get errors from time to time but just one exposure would not let me expose one image called ‘The Leaning Tower of Pagoda’ would it?. Because of the high tech detail within the structuring of this monument in this image,,, the photo emulsion failed to expose resulting in missing pieces of the image… Did I let this stop me? no way! I was so eager to get this successfully exposed so that I could print it in the nicest way possible.

• The Printing Process

So within my printing I think you already got the logistics of how I print through screen only this time I am working with just one colour layer only. Not like the 9 layered Chairman Mao with the different colours and things but I do not just want to work with lots of colours because I like black and white too. I chose to work in black and white because it reminds me of memory and light with darkness uncovers the images that we render in our minds like shapes and textures too. So anyway…I print through silkscreen by using the Black ink onto the Fabriano paper and I screen press 2 or 3 times making sure I get the best quality ink result.

Also having a faulty camcorder for this process job is not likely to win you best Oscar awards thats for sure… umm… so I have tried to make best use of it as I possibly can with the slight pause and cuttings off from when I am trying to talk about something. But managed to record what I needed in order to show you how I did this process the best way possible so please excuse me if some parts do not seem right.

What did I think of my end result within my finished prints?

To be honest I feel that in my deep self,,, I have come a long way since the old school dry point etchings that I used to do. I wanted to change this idea to silkscreen instead to insure that you get much more shadow and light quality than those etchings I used to do. I believe that I am making further progress in my work after everything I have had to do to get this far so I do feel happy about what I have achieved. my prints look 100% the way that I expected them to look in my mind and I like the deep dark crispiness edgings of my 4 images.

Notes for the future?

I may start to develope this printing method much more by doing more than two or three layers in different tones of greys and using black as the last layer to go on top. I have not worked this out yet because I have only just learnt to walk rather than running ahead of myself after just discovering my new printing method. So I will submit these 4 images in time for pretty’s in frames by the end of this Saturday coming… After Christmas I will work on how to develope more layers in these images and hope I can solve it.

Please feel free to see my short few minutes of commentary of how I did my 4 chosen prints for Pretty’s exhibition.

What is new with organising my prints for Pretty’s?

Well… basically I have had to revise the chosen 4 prints to present in the latest upcoming exhibition at pretty’s. I have changed one image for the second time because the fact that I wanted to focus mainly on monumental memory and not just about objects that hold memory. So I changed the pots image with the Leaning looking Pagoda tower image instead because like all the rest of the images this Pagoda holds key patterns within this image and this is what I am looking for the most.

Why look mostly into memorable pattern in objects and landscapes?

I believe in myself that when it comes to remembering things like memory, I think of patterns, shapes and shadows first before I start rendering the image in my mind. I believe that this is how most people remember things because of outlines of shapes and different textures. I have focused deeply well within that criteria where you see mostly texture and shape taking place within the images we see in our mind and I am trying to lift that out of the image. I am trying to show this within printing in how we capture these images in our mind at first glance and how we tend to pick up on these shapes and textures that then renders the image into the normal context.

What will I do next?

Start printing… my batch of 3 more prints and will create at least a series of up to 5 prints per image so should be alright but I will have them all at an addition of 10. I have already printed out my first image which was ‘The English and Chinese Tea Party‘ and came out like a treat indeed… I had done a batch of 10 of those ones but because I then realised that special paper is not cheap like ‘Fabriano paper‘, I then decided to do 5 prints on the rest of the 3 images. So will see how exactly how the rest of these images will turn out and hopefully will be as successful as the first one…

Task 1. Complete the rest of the 4 prints for Pretty’s Exhibition *Mandatory*

Yes… this would be very important for me to get all 4 chosen prints successfully completed ready for pretty’s selection for 14th December. I have already completed the first print in which I have printed an addition of 10 of the same image and will do the rest for the other 3 remaining prints left to do. I am quite please with the way the first image has turned out for me because it came out nicely aligned on the paper I printed on with no errors made within the printing process. So with any luck by Monday, the same result will happen with the rest of the remaining 3 images.

Task 2. Complete Chairman Mao Print *Partially Mandatory*

I have to think about possibly completing the remaining fourth, fifth and sixth layer of my Mao print. But… I must try to complete the first task first of my chosen four prints for pretty’s and once I have done all of them and put them in frames, I will then focus on my Mao print. It may be 2 or 3 days in the next coming week until I can finally continue with this print because of the first task… But I should manage to make more progress on it hopefully by Thursday afternoon at the latest. Once I have finished my Group Crit then I will continue the process of my print again.

Task 3. Work on my 2000 word project proposal 100 word daily equivalent 

I have managed to make a nice start already with my proposal at least 600 words in which has been focused more on the introduction and merging into talking about my chosen topic. I have called my project proposal ‘The Divisions of Representational Indexicality’ because I want to talk about how objects from within my work create representations of the memories that I have experienced. Hopefully this will be a successful topic to talk about and I will try keep my proposal up to date everyday by at least 100 words or more.

Task 4. Organise my Chinese and English Medicine and foods

I have had a break from this to re-think about how i will display these medicine boxes and food packages. I will think strongly about how to display these in wooden framed boxes with perspex on top to seal the contents inside and can still see what is there. I will go to think about getting the wood after christmas time to cut my own frames into shape to frame the medicine and food packages. I am think of displaying my food packages in couples because it makes perfect sense to display them like that as to say he is english and she is chinese just like me and my girlfriend.

Task 5. Complete Chinese and English illness sculpture

Now that I have almost reshaping my bricks I could say that I am very close to completion of my Chinese and English illness sculpture. I will think about trying out other ideas after christmas to try out hanging my representation of my organs over the top of the Chinese toilet but if it does not work then I will stick with this idea instead. But I still maintain that it works just as well without this idea but will still give some more ideas a try just to see.

Task 6. Update sketchbook

To be honest I have not had a chance to update my sketchbook since last weekend because of the fact of writing my project proposal and also doing my printing and blogging work in my spare time. I primarily want to use my spare time to update my sketchbook but sometimes I do need a good break from the sometimes heavy work and other work that I do so this is why I have not got round to updating my sketchbook yet. Hopefully I can find more time over the christmas period and this week to update it more with new ideas or sketches and other things. Fingers crossed for the next interesting upcoming week……