Assignment 4 - semi abstract self portrait

I looked at various artist as part of the research including Picasso and Matisse. I have always admired the Fauvres for their design and particularly their use of colour and felt that this would be a useful starting point.  I used one of the charcoal drawings for the earlier project as a starting point and drew a stylised head from it.  I made 6 or 7 colour sketches but they didn't inspire me to spend the time that it the project demanded. I will return to this design for further development as I think it holds potential.

 I found a photograph which I liked and decided to use that as a basis. After a charcoal sketch, I stylised and simplified the design and started making several colour sketches.  I tried a different background detail which I later decided to delete and also simplified the image with a thought to technical skills of cutting required.

  I decided on Japanese woodblock as I had already used monoprint, lino cut,  and dry point during this assignment.I upsized the image to fit the blocks and painted a gouche colour image with the final colour decisions to help me with the detail transfer on the plate.

I enjoyed the process of cutting the block although had difficulty with the very small elements of the face and also the thin line in the design. Most of the blocks were cut without a problem, but I did cut the face block twice and also the frame behind the head. The blocks stretched my skills to the limit but I am quite pleased with them.  One of my aims with the woodblock technique is to get more refined lines and I feel that this exercise has moved me on in terms of skills level, although I recognise that I have a long way to go.

This was a long process of cutting 7 blocks, printing profs to ensure that a) the blocks registered with each other and b) then cutting again to try to make the block as clean as possible of unwanted wood for a clean print.   Each block had then to be printed, the print kept damp for the subsequent blocks.

I refined the design with outlines around the green blocks and felt it was an improvement, however on attempting to cut the block for these lines, I found that my technique was not good enough to sustain the degree of accuracy required, so deleted them

The final print - as can be seen - it lacks the vibracy of colour of the gouche painted sketch which is a disappointment. There are also some errors in the registration and also marks carried forward from printing previous plates can be seen





I had experimented with some single colour sketches and decided at the last minute to try a purple and a brown version. Here is the purple version.  As can be seen some of the blocks hadn't been cleaned thoroughly since the previous colour and it spolis the print - however I do think it has potential and will print it again.

 Reflections

• I had some technical problems which I was unable to resolve around achieving a clean print. 

Although I have attended some workshops in the technique and produced successful work, and have produced successful prints from plates I have prepared and printed at home, I have not before tackled a design with so many colours and printing 10+ prints. The plates became very damp and I think the wood swelled causing that an apparently clean plate to lift and leave faint marks on the print

I am attending a short course on the techniques within the next few weeks so will have the opportunity to concentrate on the technical issues I have encountered.

• I feel that I was too ambitious with the number of colours, I am not yet competent enough to handle the issues involved in printing from this number of plates
• I think the design works - it isn't very abstract but I have found that trying to make a design more abstract to suit the brief doesn't work for me as I still find abstract designs difficult to understand
• I feel the single colour designs are interesting.  The colour has been contaminated by the base colour of the plate - I intend to carry out some experimentation/research to identify how I can remove all trace of a previous colour so that I can change the colour of a print more successfully
• I was very short of time having already having extended the submission date, so instead of waiting for the prints to dry before applying the next colour, I carried on printing.  I feel that some of the marks on the prints would have been avoided if I had taken more time to print
• I am disappointed with the prints that I am sending.  They are basically proofs along the road to the final print but I do not want to delay submitting again.. I know that I can achieve a much higher standard than this - however, I intend to carry on experimenting with the plates.

 I intend to:

•  use some of the prints as a basis for mixed media pieces
• print it with oil based inks and rollers
• print the blocks in black and use chine colle for the colour
• try out some more single colour prints
• use 2 or 3 of the prints/proofs to cut into strips and weave together as a collage