6th October Studio Practise and Collography Printing

Today in studio practise we continued to work on our glossary pages for the “Hands On Project” and we also started to explore the collography printing process. We continued to collect terminology, write definitions for the “Principles Of Design”, “Elements of Design” and key words from the workshop for our glossary pages. All the drawings and images continued to relate back to the “Hands On Project” and in the studio practise today I created two pages that related back to the “Principles Of Design” and “Elements Of Design”. Throughout the studio practise I worked independently and managed my time efficiently to demonstrate my understanding and knowledge of key terminology and to express them through my glossary pages.

At the start of the day, I decided to focus on the key term “Colour” from the “Elements Of Design” and I collected my primary images and secondary images (from my Pinterest board) for inspiration. For the design I decided to have colour dripping from hands to allow the colours to mix together as they fall creating a more mixture of colour. After creating a basic layout I was faced with a problem as I was unsure what material I could use to get the dripping effect I imagined in my mind. To solve the problem I explored what materials were available in the studio practise and decided to use a variety of coloured inks as they would give the effect that I wanted and also blend together easily to create different colours. To create the dripping effect I painted the hand at the top and placed the board vertically to allow the ink to fall which gave the effect I wanted. I wanted to express cold and warm colours from the ink I was given, so I placed the different types of colours on each hand.

Colour glossary page with ink.

Inks I used for colour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the ink dried I noticed hand layout didn’t show very well from the colours of the ink. To improve the design, I painted the hand outline with black ink and worked into the hand with shading and texture. This made the hand look realistic and contrasted with the bright colours making it more eye-catching. For the background I wanted it to match the element “colour” so I took my paintbrush and sprinkled ink lightly onto the paper which gave the design a better background. I found difficult in the task was creating my own definition of colour for the page. To solve the problem I looked at a range of definitions and took inspiration to write my own which described the element correctly.  The writing was also done in black ink to match the materials that I was using on the page. After creating the “Colour” glossary page, I decided to focus on “Emphasis” from the “Principles Of Design”.

Colour glossary page with ink outline to show
the hand.

To collect inspiration for the “Emphasis” design, I took my primary and secondary research and decided to draw a design that focused with one point at the middle of the page which would stand out and reflect the description. I drew a basic hand layout which was holding an image of a flower that was going to be emphasised on the page. When choosing the material I found it difficult to decide which was the right material to use as I wanted a dull colour for the background and a bright colour to emphasise the flower. I decided to use water-colour paints as it will allow me to create a different shades of colour for the dull background and hand but also create a vibrant colour to emphasise the flower drawing.

Basic outline of the emphasis glossary page
with simple colours.

After painting the glossary page I noticed that the flower that I painted wasn’t presenting much detail. To improve the design I decided to use coloured pencil to create detail on the flower but also the pattern. The next step for the “emphasise” page is the definition of the term as I didn’t have enough time to complete the glossary page. To improve in the studio workshop next time I will manage my time efficiently and plan at the start of the day what I am going to complete.

Emphasis glossary page with detail from the
coloured pencils.

Also in today’s studio practise, we started to explore the collography printing process. I was really curious to find out what the process is as I have never heard of it before. Collography printing is a process made up of a variety of textured materials that are placed onto a cardboard base. These materials can be made up of wallpaper, sting and many more but in lesson we focused on using cartridge paper. To relate it back to the “Hands On Project” we created our own individual hand inspired collography printing bases. I limited the hand layout to 3 layers as it would give an effective collography print finish. The hand paper design layout was placed onto the card base with PVA glue and covered with white emulsion. Eventually the collography base will be vanished and left to dry for a week so that it will be ready to use in the next studio practise lesson.

Collography cardboard base.

Collography print base with hand design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, todays studio practise was useful as it allowed me to continue and create more glossary pages for the “Hands On project”. Also, the task was useful as it allowed me to work independently and use my own research to inspire me to create my own glossary pages. Finally, the studio practise was useful as it allowed me to explore a new printing process and learn new skills and methods that relate to the “Hands On Project”.