BA2 Fine Art - Reflective Journal

Carrying on from the lino and screen print prints, I decided to explore the idea of stitching and textiles. I was inspired when I went shopping in pound shop and discovered they were selling bejewelled dustpan and brushes. I felt that it was a little sexist and misogynistic as it felt as if they thought that men don't use these kind of utensils and that men don't do housework whereas the women. This obviously is not the case anymore as there are cases such as single fathers having to take on the roles of both the mother and the father, therefore including housework, and that objects should not be designed to attract either gender/sex. I took this on board and decided to stitch my text screen prints of insults onto ladies' laundry aprons and a tea towel as a way to say that this seems to be ingrained into our lives and that we should start to make it clear that we aren't always the ones doing housework, that we shouldn't be restricted to such roles and that not a...

After doing the CMYK prints, I decided to experiment with the prints. The first lot of experiments I used my lino prints and printed on top of them. I had also cut out some smaller lino designs to print alongside the main lino print, and also decided to cut out most of the background and the text of my main lino design. I then printed each design separately - the main design first, then the flowers, then both lino's together. I really like how these designs have come out. I might try this out on my newspaper print, and then possibly stick it in a public space? Something that I'm considering. I like the contrast of the bold images over the text and I feel like these alone would be an effective series. I might just stick these up in a white wall and document them as a series to see what they would look like. Perhaps even individually. I might take this further and do more prints, perhaps experiment with different colours and perhaps introduce an element of collage, even perh...

This week we went to Hull to visit the Tuner Prize works being exhibited in the Ferens Gallery. This year's works are a stark contrast to last years as they are mainly 2D works, with some film and 3D objects thrown in. There were some interesting themes which were highlighted, some of which do relate to my own ideas and type of practice; using art to raise awareness of issues. In this case the themes included racism, religion, colonialism and Gaza. There were two artists there who interested me - Andrea Buttner and Lubaina Himid.  Andrea Buttner interested me because of her choice of medium and her ideas and themes. Her work focuses on subjects such as shame, embarrassment, poverty and the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Some of the prints showcased in this exhibition were based of sculptures which fascinated me as I had made prints myself based on my own sculpture maquette and it was interesting to see her interpretation of the sc...

I decided to do a little experiment with my photo etching after seeing my old copper plates from last year. I wanted to see if I could salvage my aquatint plate and use it as a background for my photo etch. After a lot of brasso, white spirit and scrubbing, I was able to salvage the plate and make it print worthy and printed my photo etch over it.  They didn't come out as I had expected as my photo etch plate is slightly bigger than the aquatint plate, however there was an element of abstraction there as the smaller plate was offset. Also some of the colours that I had chosen weren't as effective as I had hoped and you could only just make out the shape of the gender symbol in the photo etch. The colours I had chosen were white & a metallic gold, but these were over strong, bold background colours. However, I did like this effect as it had this ghostly element of this, as if the idea of being a woman, the image of a woman is slowly disappearing. This is especially relev...

While doing the text screen prints, I was inspired to look at collagraph printmaking. I had done this before in A Level Art & Year 0, and have always wanted to go back and experiment with it further. I had been looking at floral designs and so wanted to create an image based these designs, using card, wire, tissue paper on mount board. I managed to get a basic design down, and painted over it with thin washes of acrylic paint to make sure there wasn't any sticky residue left over from the pva glue. I was happy with this design, however I did feel it was slightly basic, and I do want to experiment with other materials in the future. Perhaps use actual flowers? Fake decorative flowers? The prints came out better than I thought, and I had decided to combine the collagraph with my photo etch as I wanted to have the female gender symbol over a floral background much like my screen prints. The symbol didn't come out as strong as I had hoped. This could have been due to the ligh...

After the experiments of text and imagery in Photoshop I decided to take these further and turn these into screen prints. Because of the different colours within the text, I decided to do a four colour separation screen print, and play around with layers. This was the first time I had done a screen print like this, and it was extremely time consuming but the end results were worth it. I did have some issues with the ink and it clogging the screen in the first layer, so made sure to keep the inks thin enough for the other three layers, and it was slightly difficult making sure each layer was lined up, but I liked how they slightly overlapped. I also liked the ones which weren't as successful as every print is different and unique, which relates to the idea of mass production, as each print will always be made slightly differently to the previous one even though they are made from the same inks and from the same design. I made sure to do quite a few prints so I had a few to play ar...

Last year I created a piece for the BALLOT Project. It has now been exhibited in Norwich as well as Cork, Northern Ireland. This is my first time exhibiting outside of the university, and hopefully won't be the last. For my print I decided to make the earth the ballot box, and added a crack down the middle to represent the divide that voting tends to create. My main inspirations and references where Brexit, General Election and the American Election. I also feel like this could be applied to my current work ideas, looking at social and global issues. I would like to exhibit again, and I hope to find more opportunities outside of the university, as I feel this would help improve my skills in this area and help with my own practice, as well as professional practice.

I was inspired to experiment with the idea of insults and imagery after doing my prints, especially the screen prints. I decided to go back to painting and do some quick studies in my sketchbook. I printed off a page of insults which were mainly directed towards women, and decided to place flowers over them to disrupt them and change the image.  This was also inspired by my kick-start project where I layered paint covered acetate over text. I then decided to paint a middle finger on top of another print out of these words, as I felt it was appropriate imagery - a kind of retaliation of the words, fighting back the patriarchy. I was impressed at how well it had come out, and I think these might look even more effective on a bigger scale, which if I have time I might look into. I might also look and see if I can use different imagery, possibly other symbols of femininity which aren't flowers? Perhaps even going back to the idea...

This year I chose to do the automatic drawing workshop. I chose this one as I had started doing something similar last year, and I really enjoy just mindlessly drawing. It's a good way to get the creative juices flowing if you start to struggle with artists block, and it allows you to build on the images you create, helping to also develop your ideas as well as your skills. My automatic drawings mainly consist of line drawings, however I did try to experiment with different materials and mark making. I used chunky graphite sticks, pen, pastels, and my finger to smudge the colours together. I tend to draw with with my eyes closed and just allow my hand to move the pen around the page, sometimes with the music. I really enjoyed this workshop, it allowed me to relax and just draw without worrying how it's going to look in the end, which is something that as art students we tend to think too much about, and tend to forget about enjoying the process of the drawing, painting etc. I...

I decided to have a play around in photoshop after doing my paintings in my sketchbook. I really liked the idea of combining floral designs with the text as I liked the idea of combining positive and negative imagery together - positive imagery of flowers with the negative imagery of the text. It's a nice juxtaposition in a way and something that I might explore further within my project. For the photoshop experiments I got a screen grab of the text that I had been working with and grabbed 3 floral backgrounds from google images. I then placed each image over the text one by one, playing with the different settings. I first used the Screen effect and I really liked how I could get the floral background in the text, it really obscured the text, making it difficult to read which is something that I was aiming for. It reminded me of Derek Jarman's work where he would paint colours onto a surface and then scratch in words, making them ba...

The last part of the print workshop involved organising a display/exhibition in the Library display cases. We had to bring a jar for one of our etchings and then choose a screen print. For my etching I chose my multicoloured etching, and placed my jar horizontally as it was a. too tall, and b. my etching was horizontal as that was the only way it would fit, and I felt that having the jar on it's side was interesting and different, rather than having it just standing.  For my screen print I chose the one where I had the multicoloured background and the purple foreground. I really liked this one and felt it showcased all of the skills that I had learned. It also contrasted with my etching as that was dark, and not very visible whereas my screen print was pastel and light, and very visible so I felt they both complimented it each other in a unique way. This exhibition was a good eye opener into the idea of archive, and preservation of w...