Longing……For……For……For……

Have I changed my mind about one print that I may show in Pretty’s exhibition?

I have had a slight doubt in one of my prints to show in the latest upcoming exhibition at the pretty’s solicitors in Ipswich and thought about changing one to a more stronger image.

Why did I have doubt about showing the ‘By The Waters 8’ image?

I think it is because I think I must have got the lighting a bit wrong on some of the trees within this image where I thought there was too much light on the one closest to the water. I can fix this error and use this image for another time but I guess this kind of gave me an excuse to use another slight stronger tone of image than this one.

What other image did I have in mind?

I called my other new image ‘China Wonders 2‘ as this image was taken in a particular old part of Huang Zhou in south of China and is a very old place that links to the long ancient shopping street. I call this image ‘China wonders 2’ because this image in particular out of over 100 images taken near the same area, stand out the most which is why I call this one of my greatest wonders that I seen in China.

It has this ancient feel to it like I am in the movies, this natural vibe that sends through my body with the rattling trees and old stone pathways with smooth white shrine buildings. When I decided to edit this in Photoshop, it gave me an even bigger natural ancient vibe to it the time I turned this image into black and white and created this very nice contrast with nice shadowing to it. This also is one of my most interesting memories in China and is another reason to why I should be using this image.

When will I print this image and the other 3 images for the exhibition?

As they have now increased the time to submit artwork due to christmas circumstances I do not have to now submit my work until the 14th of December at the very latest. Hopefully my work will be chosen to be shown and if so, it will be the case of choosing a day some time next week to get them printed off and ready to put on screen. Once this is done, I can then organise my finished prints in nice mounted frames. The time all this is done it will be a relief and I will certainly look forward to good responses from viewers.

What printing works have I chosen to exhibit in Pretty’s?

Print 1 – By The Waters 8

• Now the reason why I wanted to include this image as my first choice, is because I have had so many moments by the water on all my travels around China. This scene in particular was my first by the waters scene in China that I went to visit with my girlfriend called the West Lake in Huang Zhou. I wanted to edit this in photoshop in a way that it looks like a fading memory trace.

• The sunlight catches the water and trees nicely after it has been edited and looks like a fading memory trace in a way that it looks like the image is vanishing away. This was exactly how I wanted it to look and because I have done scenes before using black ink, I want to be able to go back to my old printing ways again when I done that Chinese Venice.

Print 2 – The Family Circle

• I chose this image in particular because of how this archway within this scene gives off a narrative which is also symbolic. The archway gives off a clue into family like of how Chinese families are bound in this type of circle shape and is something that it widely known in Spring Festival time.

• Spring Festival is the most celebrated Chinese time in the year where family come together for a while and eat a lot of snacks and dinner together around a very big marble or wooden table and therefore is like The Family Circle. So because I have experienced this time many times, I wanted to add this image as this means alot to me in a way that it just symbolizes home and Family around a circle spending time together.

Print 3 – Pots, People And More Pots

• I was on my travels in the countryside when I came across some mysterious looking wine urns made from terracotta. There were so many of these terracotta urns that it reminded me of so many people bundles together which also reminded me of so many Chinese people drinking together. I thought that this image had a good patterned approach to it and is like a narrative of many people drinking together so I had to include this image as my third choice.

Print 4 – Chinese And English Tea Party

• I had to include this nicely lined almost like abstract style image which a memory trace of me and my girlfriend’s family having a tea party. This tea party consisted of English style tea bags with Chinese milk and we drinked it using a Chinese rice bowel so hence why I called it Chinese And English Tea Party. I thought that this image would be very ideal as my fourth image because of the way it gives a great abstract feel to it which is perfectly in good contrast of black and white.

What will I do next?

So now that I have chosen my 4 prints very wisely, I will now try to see Carol Grant who is our arts curator of the university and will show her what I want to exhibit. Once I have done this, she and other people will assess everyone’s work and choose what ones will be most acceptable. With any luck they will accept my pieces of work to be shown for the Spring and Summer seasons and should also have the chance to make some more cash. There will also be a cash prize of £100 for the winner with the most appropriate piece of work to show, Fingers crossed it will be me although I am always a confident person so eager for success!

Task 1 – Print fourth layer stencil of Chairman Mao Print

Yes… reflecting back from my last successful third layer was quite successful in the end so I want to be able to prepare the fourth layer as soon as possible. Hopefully by monday at the earliest I will tell Glen Toner – the technician to prepare me my fourth stencil and then get him to use my photo emulsion to transfer the image on silk screen for me. Hopefully my fourth layer will be as successful as the last third layer was and then should be able to start my next printing process by late afternoon Monday or early Tuesday.

Task 2 – Group Crit discussion reflection to Re-organise my Illness sculpture and improve on it by collecting more materials

Reflecting back from my last group crit, I have had a lot of negative but also some positive feedback from fellow classmates and tutor. Now I want to be able to use their comments to guide me in trying to refine my latest Chinese and English illness sculpture by doing some more experimenting with it. I will keep on trying out different ways to present my meaning behind it by collecting more materials and also changing my current sculpture idea to make it better. Hopefully I can be much more successful this coming week and should be close to deciphering my latest illness sculpture idea by trying out different methods.

Task 3 – Choose what artworks will go into the Pretty’s Exhibition for this December.

This is an opportunity that I would not like to miss and will choose my pieces of works wisely to what will go in this spring and summer time exhibition at the Pretty’s Solicitors in Ipswich. I am thinking about adding 4 of my new images that I have played around on photoshop and eventually will screen print these images to exhibit and hopefully sell at the end of it. These new 4 images are memory traces of what I have experienced in China and will try print these the English way so that in a sense, there is still these two cultural connections with each other. I think they look great at the moment but will try to refine them even more on photoshop and will make a separate post for these to explain these images in greater depth.

Task 4 – update my sketchbook work

Now that most of my ideas and thoughts are on here I would like to try use my sketchbook more to do some more sketches about my illness sculpture and other ideas that I have in mind. I will also write down some more notes in my sketchbook too as I cannot remember everything that someone will tell me like in the lessons or seminars so I will try to keep my sketchbook and ideas more upto date. Will take more interesting and helpful notes for this coming Thursday’s presentations to see if any relevant artists or references spring into mind that will help me on my further artistic analysis.

What new project was in mind?

• Real Life English People Playing Mahjong – An English and Chinese Cultural Understanding.

Well just to reflect back on my Time Mahjong that I built for my degree show, I wanted to try out something beyond that and thought about the idea of using real English people playing a Chinese Traditional Mahjong game.

I did think about this for several months now in figuring out ways in how I can successfully do this like getting the right setup, camera gear, english people to play it and so on…… So it just basically crossed my mind with a chance to ask Dr Tsang if he will collaborate with me.  Tsang is the film lecturer of my University in Ipswich who is fully qualified within the subject  and he also has film students that could help do the whole setup plan for this project.

Reflecting back to the last post of the meeting with Film students.

Yeah… it was nerve racking at first to meet with his level 5 film students to whom I had never meet before and wondered what they thought of this Mahjong idea. So even though they looked a bit stunned and unsure about this idea, the meeting became a success and that we were due to start this filming process in a week’s time by Friday 20th November. So the only thing left to do now was to gather the Mahjong game and table to play on and to confirm by email with Dr Tsang that I was up for this project to commence on Friday.

How did me and Dr Tsang organise everything before the shoot?

So basically once my attendance was all confirmed for Friday I just kept on going through my mind in how to present this the best possible way like what table we would use and what kind of people will play first… In the end I just grabbed a nice wooden style table from Room 1 cafe which looked the best idea mahjong table to use. And then when the day finally came I was introduced to everyone and then they introduced themselves to me just so that we can know a little about each other first before we proceed.

Then after that half of the level 5 film team grabbed the filming gear whilst I setup the mahjong and help Tsang grab the table, everything was now prepared and ready to film…

What did I feel about this whole experience and the final outcome at the end?

I really felt excited about this already as soon as I went through them filming doors, all I wanted to do was just try to make this happen and work the best way possible. I felt more welcomed by other film students once we got rolling and setting things up like cameras and stuff and got to really know them more as we were going through this filming process. It was a very cool and exciting experience to work with them and seeing them holding up the take 1 or take 2 clip board was funny.

It felt as though I was on a proper filming set but then the more I teached them how to play mahjong the more I seemed to forget other people with cameras around me. It felt as though I soaked up so much of this experience that we became the Iconic stage with others to watch us play at the same time. I certainly needed good patience for this kind of thing because Tsang and 3 film students who were playing did not know how to play this game at all and I felt really good about myself in teaching them successfully how to play it in the end.

I felt like I had achieved something very good and at the end of all of this we even thought about starting the Mahjong club which sounded really nice and one guy said that this was the most fun he had in 8 years so it felt like one of my best experiences that I had also. We had a small break in between the two hours of playing and when that was all over we just sit back and wait for the filming and voice recordings to be transferred over to their hard drives and my computer. The footage looked very high quality in my eyes and everyone elses and one camera got some good close ups while another camera got other angles and they basically done a very ace job of it so was very pleased with the end result.

What will I think about doing next?

Well… After all of this Dr Tsang mentioned to me and other film students if we would like to collaborate again to do this same idea but only next time we do it in a restaurant or a theatre which sounded like a very cool idea to me and others too. So maybe after Christmas time I can have a proper chat with Dr Tsang to see how we can go about organising this exciting event and should hopefully cross over some good ideas with each other to plan for the next shoot. Hopefully we will be able to take this so many steps further in making a successful experience in playing Chinese Mahjong with English people.

Please feel free to watch or browse through this short interesting version with Level 5 students in teaching them how to play Chinese Mahjong.

Here is the Link to the Movie file if movie does not load…Enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u3k9magjpsjkic4/Alex%20Woolcock%20-%20Teaches%20English%20People%20How%20To%20Play%20Mahjong.mp4?dl=0

How did the third layer of Chairman Mao finally come out?

Umm… I have to say that this third time round of attempting to print the third layer of Chairman Mao has finally payed off very well… I could not ask for a much better result with my new mixed version of photo emulsion and it really did do a good job within the detail image of the third shadow layer. The shadow layer is the third layer that goes on top of the main Chairman Mao’s face skin colour and I thought that the alignment of the layers has turned out as good as I could possibly get it.

Were there any problems at all during this printing process?

If I have to be majorly picky, I would say that either do your ink mixing on the day or be faced with re-mixing the pigment again within your mixed inks. Because I always have this problem every time I am ready to print and suddenly another colour starts showing through the already mixed colour. So I will remember to always make sure that my inks are well and truly mixed properly before starting to set up my printing process so that there is no delay. Lesson learned!

What did I feel about my third layer print?

Every time I do one layer on my Chairman Mao print I feel relieved and feel like I am taking one step forward to achieving a good print. This layer I thought had turned out very well for me because it looked clear, there was not any splodges ‘which is like a curse to me’ and also it was perfectly aligned with the other two layers.

I really felt that I achieved something good and I think that it only can get better and better now that I have managed to overturn my problems within printing though silk screens.

Reflecting back on the problems I had with this print

I did feel like I have just leaped over a month’s worth of obstacles to finally get this far and what a journey this has become… First I had the problem with getting hold of some larger acetate sheets for doing my large stencils for printing which I finally have now so that I can always do large prints. Then secondly, it was the Photo emulsion problem becoming out of date because some of it stuck to my prints when I tried printing on them and also the image was not exposed enough, resulting in splodges through the image.

This cost me money and time because of how long I have waited to do each layer and also costs money for the special fabriano paper. The photo emulsion does not last longer than 4-5 months but now have managed to finally resolve it by mixing my own version which has proved to become very successful along with many other future prints yet to make.

What is the next part for this print process?

Now by monday morning I need to get Glen Toner – the technician to print me out my forth Chairman Mao layer and ready to expose onto silkscreen. Hopefully this will turn out good the first time round with my new improved photo emulsion and should look crisp and dry enough to print through. This will be one of my tasks for next week at the utmost earliest that I can do.

Feel free to watch my short 3 minutes of commentary of my successful third layering of Chairman Mao