After discussing my first prints for the Riso with Srin last week, I wanted to get more hands on e.g. think about layering, the formation of colours and possibly text. I created these stencils with no bitmap to play around with the appearance of photos from the Riso, currently I am considering pornography within my practice, Andrea Dworkin’s text struck me as quite aggressive and angry, similarly to my still/films of Sweet Tooth B&W. I wanted to work with text within print and decided to play around with Dworkin’s text from “Pornography: Men Possessing Women”. Me and Srin spoke of placement within the image, I had thoughts of replacing the breast in the mouth with a section of text from Dworkin’s passage to combine these ideas, as well as experimenting with movement of the text around the page. See stencils below.
Reflection 30/04/21: This has been working really well – text and imagery. The boldness, instead of coloured text I have decided to go with black. It more readable and acknowledges the thoughts among the print.
See simple mock ups below of how I wish the print to look as an outcome. The text may add depth to the image and capture the viewers attention for longer.
Reflection 19/04/21: As I printed these I realised how unrecognisable the main layer of Sweet Tooth B&W is. I feel you can see the breast if you know what to look for, this is a similar issue I was having from my 1-1 with Gary 15/04/21, there can be a line where you play with the image too much it looses its identity. I may have to use To Bite imagery instead, one which hasn’t been over layered with cellophane.
Andy Warhol is known for his screen prints, especially the one of Marilyn Monroe. He uses the coloured ink to highlight the important parts/well known parts of Monroe – “her iconic lips are boldly colored a deep red” (Masterworks Fine Art Gallery, n.d.), “her platinum blonde hair by adding variants of yellow” (Masterworks Fine Art Gallery, n.d.), see below. This is what I have carried out within this experimentation of prints using pornographic text to embody the breast, of which represents a women to explore these ideas of sexual objectification through a print sense instead. The use of bold colour in Warhols prints suggest the vibrancy Monroe lived and this glamorisation of herself which came from the cinema and the male gaze.
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967.
The use of paper within this experiment was very weak as I am yet to buy coloured card/paper – the white worked really well with vibrancy for the inks, I learnt I prefer the neon quality of the inks. Where as the brown paper dulls the actual ink, absorbing its boldness, especially the yellow, see below. Reflecting on the previous prints I did, I prefer the sand like colour – I think it was soft enough to act as a base colour for the print. Maybe my paper of choice for submission after more trials. I aim to try documenting these in situ of the studio too but the documentation of the colours work well in the sun. – Work with better placement.
Reflection 20/04/21: After reviewing these prints, I felt they looked flat, the image was lost – I have recently created some extra layers to add depth to the prints including – coloured paper, text, imagery (photo or bitmap, or both?) and then a digital drawing on top highlighting breast/mouth. I felt the mouth/breast was lost in these experiments and I want them to be the main focus.
I think pastel coloured paper may work really well with these prints. Like Warhol uses a background to work off, I feel a background colour, instead of a gradient, would give more depth and tonality to the image. I previously tried colour paper and it was very effective, giving the ink more of a base.
I really enjoyed the photographic look the print as well to these images. Before I just used bitmap for all layers, would be good to work with a mix of textures with the levels. I feel I could use a bitmap layer as the final finisher on top instead to add depth and they feel quite flat without a gradient.
I firstly experimented with blue and pink – I felt like the blue text dominated the image while experimenting with a number of lay outs, the main focus of the print and felt quite dark see below. I didn’t like this however, I feel yellow and pink work best in relation to layering and soft-ness as well as the ideas that come with women’s representation in pornography. I feel the ‘pretty colours’ relate to the glamorisation of destruction in the image – cellophane glamorising the breast being eaten. ‘Pretty colours’ act as a new form of cellophane.
Reflection 20/04/21: I felt the blue was too bold/contrasting for the text – I aim to trial black as an over lay (digital drawing) to redefine the mouth and use the paler colour (yellow) for the text so it doesn’t draw too much attention away from the main imagery.
The side format of the type is interesting blue – this would work well if the photo was more recognisable – the blue text isn’t as distracting. But layered completely over the breast isn’t appealing, I feel the yellow is less distracting but works quietly with the context of the photo as well as being visually pleasing considering the image.
I also combined some life drawings with text and photography, this was to experiment with how drawing would come out like – I liked them but I wasn’t sure they worked with so much already going on. I threw them off centre.
I am having a crit like session 21/04/21 to assess these images/context/paper and colours to get feedback with how to approach the next lot of prints.
