Work in Progress Portfolio December 2019 to March 2020

Since my last crit and during Semester B I worked in the print room making some Lino-cut prints I cut during December and January. I went on the drypoint induction and made two plates shown below. For the Lino cuts I wanted to experiment with papers and colour, so I used some grey paper, graph paper and red inks. I also mixed some red into the black ink to create a richer black.

I cleared my studio space in the post grad studio and painted it white. I worked on drawing directly onto the wall with black tape. I made one wall a bigger than life size version of work I had made very small scale in my sketchbook. In this installation the edges of the walls are important, just as the edges of the paper are for the small drawings. The feeling from this work is intended to be a disorientation of the space. A sense of falling, of moving, perhaps a shift.

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The drawing on this right hand wall is more organic. It developed from the sketchbook work I have been doing and the prints I made last semester and has a sense of the ‘cell’. This has also been a constant theme developing in my work for some time and I have also been looking at how to personify, or bring to life these cell forms through working with other materials in three dimensions. I started this installation on the 26th January, you can see the development below. I continued this work in a large plan sketchbook more detail will be in a separate post.

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I also had previously wanted to use my ritual finds to make some fragile objects and used the slip onto plaster batts to impress some of my feather finds. The result were very fragile ’tiles’ to which the feathers were a sacrifice.

To this end I started working in the ceramics area with porcelain clay and dipped string and objects into porcelain slip to create small fragile sculptures.

I also made some nets, these were incredibly fragile and have broken but the pieces will be used. Shown below are examples of studio research in the ceramics and three dimensional workshop areas.

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The outcome is below, I haven’t included all of the pieces as some remain in the studio which I cannot reach right now.

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I spent time working in the 3d workshops attending inductions in jewellery smithing, woodwork and welding.

making small scale sculpture and drawings for sculpture

I had ideas for making some small scale sculptures and started to make maquetts of these. I worked some into larger cardboard and installed them as leaning pieces into the studio installation. I had made 2d versions of these as paintings too and have worked on these images and 2d and 3d ideas in my sketchbooks. I plan to make some versions of these as large scale pieces in plywood when the workshops reopen and want to add to the installation already started.

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I started to look into making nets and I decided to buy some cheapish Nets to look at and used one to create some photographs. My plan was to start installing this net over the cell drawing in the studio. I am going to do some printmaking, slopwork and photograms with these. I have since bought another net to try and work with out of the studio. Below are a series of materials research studies using fastcast resin, drawing and ready made nets.

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prints of feathers

Before using the feathers for the making softground etching plates, I ran them through the etching press with damp paper to create impressions of them before their sacrifice to the plates. The impressions are difficult to see, but once they are held up to the light, their delicate details come into relief.

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I then made some soft ground etching plates of some of my ritual feather finds and the plates are now ready to print as soon as soon as the print room re-opens

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etching plates showing the impressions left by the ritual finds feathers

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Reflection and next steps

I have worked on a great deal of experimentation this term moving from the intense research programme for the first semester into a varied practice for second semester.

The next steps are to develop my practice under the new Cover-19 conditions and work out how to move my installation practice across to this new environment.

I will develop the installation ideas if I can into some form that I can submit for Practice One without compromising my experimentation and ideas.

I will use the sketchbooks and mock ups to enable this transition.