Mdes illustration online journal: February 2014

Friday 28 February 2014

Intagilo Reduction Ink Printmaking II Drypoint Printing: Obscure Damnation

28/02/2014

Blog entry 58:

After realising that I wanted to focus more on depicting "Hell" or "Damnation" rather than "Heaven" or the "Divine"and after creating a set of collograph prints from the plates I had made when still considering the divine, I wanted to use my favourite method of printmaking, Drypoint Intaglio reduction ink.

(The term intaglio is Italian for incise)

This process is similar to Collograph, but instead of card (which layers are added to or cut into similarly to collage) the print plate is aluminium and is scratched into using a dry pint needle by hand or computer aided photographic machinery.

My Drypoint Plate is 500 x 500mm which is much larger than the collograph plates I have been working with (to get myself used to reduction ink printmaking again), which means I can add much more detail: This is also aided by the marks that can be scratched in to print also can be made very small with a good amount of control (my insatiable need for control with media and materials explained in blog entry 45). Working at this larger size however meant that it took a much longer amount of time to apply ink and rub off: I had to also add areas of ink back into the scratches which were very thin or that I had rubbed the ink out of to ensure the large multitude of lines I created would print.

I often liken the drypoint print to the work that can be achieved by using biro or fine liner, as makes can be made thinner and with less pressure to suggest a lighter area of tone, but essentially with one print (assuming that only one colour ink has been used and the print has not been printed on a bicolour or multicolour surface) only the colour of the ink and the surface will be present (e.g. black ink on white paper will equal a black and white print).

Drypoint Plate Damnation inked up with Raw Umber etching ink (Photograph) Plate 500 x 500mm:

Test print on A1 Cartridge Paper:

Test print on cartridge paper

When taking prints from this drypoint plate, I realised that the quality of the paper which is being printed on is of paramount importance: The test print above is printed on cheap cartridge paper, whereas the print shown below is printed on a specialist printmaking paper which is much thinker, but unfortunately more expensive. It is apparent from looking at the two sets of photographs that the quality of line is extensively different, above it is inconsistent both in quality of line and thickness of ink, where as below the print is of much better, crisper quality. Throughout this project, I have been exploring the mediums and materials I have been using to get the best possible results, mainly in my samples book, I intend to come to a decision by the end of this semester about which materials I will use next semester and how is best to apply them.

Drypoint Print Damnation Raw umber etching ink 500 x 500mm on Seawhite 300gsm specialised print paper UP (unique print) (Photographs):

I am very happy with how this print has come out (although I had to pay a lot of money for the specialised paper) and now wish I had added in more hands to show a larger multitude of people in this Damnation; however the fact that there are only a number of hands ensures that the image is not too overcrowded and is suggestive of the inhabitants of The Library of Babel being close to extintion.

I have noticed from this image that the hand gestures and composition are working quite well for me and I now intend to look into this in more detail.

An Obscure Combination: Dante's Inferno and The Library of Babel

28/02/2014

Blog entry 57:

Whilst etching my dry point plate, I listened to Dante's Inferno (14th Century Epic Poem) as an audiobook and realised that I was struggling to depict the divine because it is so lacking as tangible in The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges, on which my project is loosely based. Whilst listening, I considered how the two story lines could possibly interlink in a visual way, so that I was focussing more on the lack of the divine rather than the prescience of it.

As I am very interested in illustrating poetry such as this I feel that this is an appropriate way to tackle my project based on The Library of Babel.

To listen to the audiobook Dante's Inferno please follow the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxEn4h9Y64c
(Alighieri, 1300)

"Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell." (Borges, 1944)

The above quote is taken from the Library of Babel, and has inspired me to visually describe the library visually as the seven hells in Inferno, Taking ideas from both settings and linking them.

To better understand Dante's Inferno, I have undertaken some research so I am completely sure that I fully comprehend what the Poem describes, being as it is both translated and worded difficulty:

To look at the research I have read please follow the links below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)
(Wikimedia foundation, 2014)

http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/index2.html
(The University of Texas at Austin, 2007, Abridged version of Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Inferno)

Brief overview of Dante:

Dante degli Alighieri (1265 - 1321) was a well known Italian poet, his most famous work was his Divine Comedy, of which Inferno is a part and was originally written in Italian.

The Nine Circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno:

Limbo (Canto 4) First Circle
- A place for those who have not been baptised including infants - Castle where many poets including Homer inhabit

Lust (Canto 5) Second Circle
- People in this area are the first to be properly punished, they are blown back and forth by strong winds

Gluttony (Canto 6) Third Circle
- "The Great worm" (Alighieri, 1300) Cerberus guards this area, the gluttons lie in the slush of icy rain

Avarice and Prodigality (Greed) (Canto 7) Fourth Circle
- Many clergymen, popes and cardinals are in this fourth circle, the people in this area have heavy weights on their chests and are forced to collide into each other (this reminds me of a newton's cradle) This area is guarded by "Pluto" which either describes the classical ruler of the underworld or Greek God of wealth Plutus

Wrath and Sullenness (anger)(Canto 7 - 8) Fifth Circle
- This area is a river in which the inhabitants lay beneath the surface

Heresy (Canto 10) Sixth Circle
- The people here are trapped in flaming tombs (Hexagonal tombs?)

Violence: Murder, Suicide, Blasphemy, Sodomy, Usury (Canto 12 - 17) Seventh Circle

- Outer Ring: This ring harbours violence against people and property, the people here are immersed in the river Phlegethon which is made of blood and fire

- Middle Ring: This ring harbours people who committed Suicide and Spendthrifts, these people are turned into gnarled thorny bushes and trees and fed on by the harpies, those who committed suicide are trees in this place which have their own corpses hanging from these trees. The spendthrifts are mauled and chased by ferocious dogs.

- Inner Ring: This ring harbours the blasphemers and sodomites which inhabit a flaming desert with hot ash flakes raining from the sky - blasphemers lie on the sand, usurers sit and sodomites wander in groups

Freud: Pimping and Seducing, Flattery, Simony, Sorcery, Political Corruption, Hypocracy (Canto 18 - 23) Eight Circle
- This circle is split in to areas called Bolgias
More Freud: Theft, Fraudulent, Divisiveness, Falsification (Canto 24 - 30)

Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers march in separate lines and are whipped by demons

Bolgia 2: Flatterers are covered in human excrement

Bolgia 3: People who are condemned of Simony are head first in holes with flames burning the soles of his feet

Bolgia 4: Sorcerers, astrologers and false prophets have their heads twisted around to face backward and walk backwards

Bolgia 5: Corrupt Politicians are immersed in a lake of tar, which is guarded by devils called the Malebranche

Bolgia 6: Hypocrites walk around wearing lead capes, the Pope who ordered Jesus to be crucified is seen here crucified to the ground and trampled

Borgia 7: Thieves are chased and bitten by snakes and lizards, a bite makes the victim change shape, this area is guarded by Centaur Cacus who has a fire breathing dragon

Borgia 8: Fraudulent advisers and evil councillors are concealed by individual flames

Borgia 9: Sowers of discord are hacked to pieces with a sword by a demon, as it makes it's rounds, the wounds heal before being hacked apart again

Borgia 10: More falsifiers suffer from various diseases

Treachery: Caina, Antenora, Ptolomea, Judecca (Canto 32 - 34) Ninth Circle
- This circle is watched over by Giants

Round 1 Caïna: Inhabitants are surrounded by ice up to their chins

Round 2 Atenora: Similar to Round 1

Round 3 Ptolomaea: Traitors to their guests are here who lie in ice which covers everything but their faces

Round 4 Judecca: Traitors here are completely engulfed in ice and are trapped in all conceivable positions

In the centre of the ninth circle is Satan who is described as having 3 faces, one red, one yellow and one black, and six wings which are constantly beating, Satan is waist deep in ice and is cobbling, each of his mouthes eats a prominent traitor feet first apart form Judas who's head is being gnawed
(Wikimedia, 2014)

All of this information has inspired me to design each of the nine circles (or hexagons) of hell using The Library of Babel's settings and ideas.

Obscure Oil Painting III & IV

28/02/2014

Blog entry 56:

Due to my new found love with oil paint I decided to create another in black and white, visualising the idea of the fontanel, outlined in blog entry 53, which was inspired by The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. I have depicted the fontanel as a hexagonal shape to link this idea with the idea of the divine hexagonal shape in The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges, on which my projects is loosely based.

Before creating this painting, I looked at images such as this for inspiration:

Unknown title by unknown artist (N.d.)

I found this image inspirational due to my black and white paintings often being quite dark, I have difficulty making tone seem like different shades of white rather than darker mid tones. The one dark area of the image (which at an educated guess I would personally say it is a digital painting) creates a focal point, which is interestingly only one eye, which is of course a prominent or obvious facial feature but it is not central. Making one eye dark means that the image not only has a sense of dark and light on an extreme level, but makes it a-symmetric - I am very fond of obvious a-symmetry and find it visually interesting, so I would like to try it in my work.

Black and white acrylic painting practice:

Tonal Acrylic and Biro (Ball Point Pen) on thick backing card board

This is my first attempt at a full black and white painting in acrylic since the start of this semester, before working in oils I wanted to establish how to quickly put down tonal paint successfully. I have chosen to make the light source above the charter to suggest a force or divine entity from above.

Oil painting III (Black and white):

Oil painting IV:

With the two oil paintings, I have trie to look at form and tie areas of my idea generation together, but at the moment I do not feel that it is working as well as it possibly could, so I intend to keep working at the issue.

Intaglio Reduction ink Printmaking: Collograph printing

28/02/2014

Blog entry 55:

Due to my wanting the experimentation process in this project to be extensive, I have now looked into printmaking, as I feel that as a hand rendered process, paint and print go hand in hand so to speak. I did an extensive amount of print in College but felt that it was not challenging enough, as I found it quite easy, at this level I realise that due to my 'natural' flair for certain areas, I should try to push this and see where it leads and what results I get.

My preferred printmaking processes are reduction ink, a process where ink is deposited onto a print plate and then rubbed off leaving a thin matte layer of ink on the plate - paper is then placed face down onto the plate and rolled over using a printing press. Reduction ink processes I will use are Drypoint and Collograph.

I have also created small emulsion print samples in my samples book as another printmaking consideration, I am fond of this process and have used it in the past to print book covers onto fabric for binding (shown below).

EMULSION PRINTED BOOK COVERS

All of these processes will be listed with their properties in my samples book.

I started my reduction ink printmaking with collograph printing: A collograph plate is made by cutting into and adding layers of textured material (e.g. textured wallpaper or dried leaves) onto a piece of mount board, a medium thickness of card, it is then primed with french polish to make the card withstand the moisture in the etching ink. This process is called collograph due to the making of the plate being very similar to collage. An important point to remember is that all reduction ink and many other printing processes will print backwards.

Aspects that can be added (or taken away) to card plate and their effects:
(All information found here is my own experience from specialising in printmaking at college)

Creating thin lines by cutting into the card with a craft knife or scalpel - ink will fill the cut into area and will present as a line in print

Cutting shapes into the first layer of card and peeling it away to reveal the softer (almost foam like material) which makes up the middle layer of the card - Because this area is softer, even after being primed with french polish, it will absorb more ink, so these areas present themselves as dark areas in print (cutting too deep into this area can result in the ink in these areas not making contact with the surface on which you are printing, which is often paper due to it gong through a press and leaving areas of unprinted surface)

Using Carborundum (a specialist sand like material for use in print) - this specialist material is designed to give a very dark area of ink and will often if not always present itself as the darkest area in print (Carborundum can be scratched away from plate when applying ink and I have not used it on any of the plates in this blog entry)

PVA Glue - Areas that have been treated with PVA glue are not affected by french polish and stop all ink from penetration the treated areas meaning that these will be the lightest or areas completely untouched by ink (if PVA is spread too thin, ink my still penetrate)

Use of textured materials (stuck down with PVA glue) - These areas depending on the depth and type of texture will print as a backward inked version of that texture (if texture is too deep or in too much relief, then all areas of ink may not make contact with the surface on which you are printing) for this use of collograph I recommend materials which present texture in slight relief such as dried leaves/ pressed flowers, sand, textured or embossed wallpaper, etc.

I created a set of initial small plates and prints to help remind me of the properties and process which are listed I'm my Samples Book. I then created larger, more refined plates from the preferred methods used when creating samples. I have decided to only show the more refined prints on this blog because there us a vast number of prints and it would be difficult to show everything.

Scans of collograph prints and Plates created as a initial step back into printmaking:
(All artwork in this entry is mine and soul property of myself unless referenced otherwise)

Collograph plate 1 The Book Man's Aureola:

Print plate 1 The Book Man's Aureola

I have used sample NUM & NUM to inform this print plate, like sample NUM I have cut the plate into the shape of the hexagon and used cutting simple lines, peeled away areas of the top layer of the mount board and PVA glue to create different tones and an image. I have positioned the portrait to ensure that the shape of the plate itself will look like a halo or aureola surrounding the subject's head.

The Book Man's Aureola print 1/8 on cartridge paper:

Print 1/8 The Book Man's Aureola

This is the first print taken from the plate using Raw Umber etching ink with extender, as is apparent the tones and lines have printed backward as predicted. When taking this print the paper was a little too wet which meant that it stuck to the plate and was more difficult to remove without ripping.

The Book Man's Aureola print 2/8 on cartridge paper:

Print 2/8 The Book Man's Aureola

This print is the second print taken from the same set of ink which print 1/8 is taken from. Because the paper was too wet when printing the first print, areas of the paper stuck to the plate and affected the next prints, which is evident in the darker marks on the print that are not evident in the prior one.

The Book Man's Aureola print 3/8 on newsprint paper:

Print 3/8 The Book Man's Aureola

This print is the third print taken from the same set of ink as prints 1/8 & 2/8 on newsprint paper to get a print from the remaining ink on the plate. This print is much lighter and only really shows outlines and dark areas. Newsprint paper is usually used as protective paper that goes under the plate and on top of the paper face down on the plate to protect both the print and the press blankets when going through the press, but I use this paper to print on if I think the print will be more experimental or lighter.

The Book Man's Aureola print 4/8 (experimental) on newsprint paper:

Print 4/8 The Book Man's Aureola

I have created this print by layering two areas of folded over newsprint paper to make two halves of the print and putting them back together in such a way that is visually odd. I am particularly fond of this print due to the odd fault line between the two halves of the print.

The Book Man's Aureola print 5/8 on Cartridge Paper:

Print 5/8 The Book Man's Aureola

I decided to use a red colour to suggest the crimson of the crimson hexagon in which the Book Man resides.

The Book Man's Aureola print 6/8 on Cartridge Paper:

Print 6/8 The Book Man's Aureola

The Book Man's Aureola print 7/8 (experimental heavy ink) on Cartridge Paper:

Print 7/8 The Book Man's Aureola

this is a more experimental print spreading the ink expressively and whipping areas of the ink away to reveal part of the image. on this print I left too much ink which involved there being a longer drying time and the ink being pushed further than the constraints of the plate when going through the press.

The Book Man's Aureola print 8/8:

Print 8/8 The Book Man's Aureola

This is the second print taken from the same set of ink as prig 7/8, this print has worked better due to the access ink having been taken of the plate and the second print more clearly portraying what I intended: the ink is in chaotic marks surrounding an area of the face that has been properly revealed creating a focal point to the print.

Collograph plate 2 Babel Cherub:

Babel Cherub print 1/3:

print 1/3 Babel Cherub

This print design mixes the idea of the divine cherub form with the hexagonal shape described in The Library of Babel, the cherub also has androgynous characteristics such as pectoral muscles and a vagina (more on this subject in blog entry 33).

Babel Cherub print 2/3:

print 2/3 Babel Cherub

Babel Cherub print 3/3:

More experimental prints using collograph:

Experimental hexagon 1/1

This hexagonal outline was created from the back of The Book Man's Aureola, leaving an interesting hexagon.

The Book Man's Aureola and Babel Cherub combined

This is a mixture of two print plates. I have done this by first printing the larger plate, The Book Man's Aureola and then printing The Babel Cherub plate over the already existing print. This means I can also use plates such as drypoint over a collograph print.

Overall I am satisfied with the work I have produced through this printmaking session, next I intend to try a larger plate, made possible through the printmaking facilities available to me at university, which will be aluminium drypoint.