I began thinking about this project at the beginning of Part 4 of the Drawing 1: Drawing Skills Module. Initially I thought about creating a cubist style drawing of multiple views of women in superimposed yoga “warrior poses”. But I decided this may be biting off more than I could chew right now. Cubism is a tricky concept to pull off. Why give myself too high a mountain to climb at this stage?
The next idea was a kind of Mayan inspired art in the form of a collagraph print. This, though quite striking was not really an outcome in itself but more of a test run for the final idea which is as follows in this blog post. It went through a couple of incarnations before I settled on the following design
The above image was scanned and uploaded to Irfanview. After flipping it it was sectioned into 8 A4 sections. This was printed on A4 paper – so 8xA7 sections – I then transferred this image using graphite pencil to an A1 sized support made up of 8xA4 sections of greyboard. I substituted two of these for 4xA5 sections of grey board.
After the following adjustments…
My intention is to print from these 10 plates. I may change colours for some of the plates. I’ll play around with different complementary colour combinations. I did stop to consider the wisdom of using 10 separate plates as opposed to one piece of A1 mountboard. The jury’s still out on this. I may redo using one large board. At the moment through, there is more scope for juggling different arrangements and finishes for each board. It is also easier to handle/cut 10xA4/A5 boards than one A1 board – though admittedly mountboard is easier to cut than greyboard plus I’ll have the mystery of not knowing how the whole picture will look until the pieces are reunited – in the correct order or otherwise.
I have a 4 day weekend coming up during which time I shall get some of the surface prepared using a kraft knife. Then I could prime the canvas with gesso (I’ve used this before with satisfactory results). However, I think that diluted PVA glue maybe more effective. I will then add collage and draw onto the surface of the A1 sized print. I may add the following flower designs (photocopies of a design from my sketchbook) in a klimtesque style. This may soften the image somewhat. Or it may even accentuate the hard lines in the features.
Post Script:
I read that collagraph prints require the use of a press ideally. This either requires a rethink or I commission/make a steel press. I bought a good book on creating a printing business. There is so much I dont know about printing. But that’s another module. Worth thinking about further, I feel. I’ll read the book and think further. .
Actually, as it’s a relief collagraph as opposed to intaglio, it maybe ok just to use applied pressure by simpler, less expensive means. I have a marble rolling pin.
References:
Yeats. S. (2016) Learn to Earn from Printmaking. Self Published in the UK.
Walker. M. (2020) Self portrait from sketchbook [pastel on paper]
Maureen Walker's blog: An Artist's Journey 