After years of studying art I have come to the conclusion that my processes are often not quick ones! I definitely envy those that are able to produce high quality work in shorter amounts of time.
I suppose this can be thought about in a more positive way in how I have more time to consider what I am doing and why.
As I have been creating many etching plates from which to print from throughout my project, it seems a shame they cannot play a more central role in my overall outcomes. It was in conversation with a tutor when I realised this is exactly what I should do.
Just holding my plates up to the light creates an interesting and very different effect to that of my etching prints. In particular, it is the plates I have already printed which seem to have an added depth given the ink residue left after the printing process.
With this in mind I came up with the idea to use an overhead projector to project my etching plates onto a wall in the white space. The images shown within this post are examples of the effect this created.
To keep this idea in line with other parts of my project, I decided to attach anaglypta wallpaper onto the wall and then project the etching plate to see how the image would change. Unfortunately it was only if you were very close up to the wall that you could see the effect created by the anaglypta paper. This is a shame as it would’ve been nice to keep this thread within my work. I could experiment with painting on the anaglypta to see if this changed the outcome. I think the relationship between the wallpaper and projection would be really interesting although I would not want any colour to impede the original projection in any way.
When I began my etchings using my family photos, I was adamant that the format must remain 6×4 in relation to the size of the original photographs. Whilst I am happy that this is a common thread in my etching prints themselves, I must say it was really refreshing to see the image on a much larger scale when using the projector. I think at this size the viewer is better able to appreciate every single mark made on the etching plate. It is also interesting to acknowledge the contrast between more refined marks where I have stayed as true as possible to the photograph and the marks where the image becomes more abstract.
As already mentioned, the presence of the ink residue is heightened greatly through this projection process. This creates a completely different outcome to that of a print which is largely just black and white. This difference in colouration is unfortunately not something which is present with every etching plate, this is perhaps why I am drawn to certain plates where this is evident.
It was completely circumstantial that there was a plinth stood in front of the wall which I happened to be projecting onto. Instead of moving it out of the way I actually started to play around with extra items to see how the image could become almost three dimensional. I think this particular approach worked better with some etching plates than others but the overall effect I still did find engaging. I was mainly trying to move the plinth so that it was the figure which was brought forward out of the projection.
I think my next step would be to experiment not only with inked plates but also fresh etchings which have not yet been printed. These would be images from my seaside series which is still in progress. I would also like to play around with more plinths, perhaps covering the image up completely on the projector so that only the figure is visible upon the plinth as well.
