Exploring different media (personal exercise)

Part of my tutor feedback from part 1 was the encouragement to explore different "mediums other than paper, pen and pencils and begin thinking about illustrating with found objects, photographs, collage etc."

As well as trying to incorporate that advice into some of the exercise and assignment work, I want to have more general explorations not confined to the official exercises.  I thought I'd try out linocut:

Linocut:

Linocut prints came more and more to my attention during my work on Drawing 1 module. I was particularly taken and inspired with some of the fabulous illustrations, etchings and prints of Colin See-Paynton:

Image source:  www.see-paynton.co.uk, 30th November.

Much linocut/etchings are completely compelling to me; I generally love the visual style and simplicity of this artform.   Upon reflection, I'm amazed that I've never tried it before.  Perhaps I considered it to have a very high learning curve with rather intense specialised equipment required. I've found this is simply not the case.  With good quality starter equipment, it is surprisingly simple.

My first attempt below was basic - a flower shape. My intention, just to get to grips with the cutting implements and the printing method.  Crude outcome but satisfying.
The first print didn't have enough ink.  The second one much better:


After this first experiment, I then moved on to trying out something a little larger scale.  I thought I'd try a blackbird:


Getting better, and more in control of the cutting tools this second time.  Although I did bodge the birds feet with too deep a cut. And once it is cut, there is no going back with this media!

I will keep going with linocut - it is something that I quite like doing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Part 2: Spider Diagrams

Image
In this exercise I had to explore four words; creating a mind-map for each. The four words are Seaside, Childhood, Angry and Festival. - - -  The first word I explored was Seaside. I found this a pleasurable and fun activity and the associations kept flying into my mind.  I couldn't resist adding a few little drawings and images to bring the mind-map to life a little more: Next - Childhood. A more difficult brainstorm compared to seaside; the word associations were more difficult to bring to mind. Perhaps the main difference between seaside and childhood is the nature of the words.  With seaside visualisation, there are lots of "stuff" and "things". Plenty of nouns.  However, with childhood, there are more complex visual associations and words produced.  More adjectives for sure.  And perhaps this is why the childhood spider diagram has a different feel to me compared to the seaside one. However, overall I'm fairly pleased with the outcome
Read more

Part 3: Abstract Illustration

Image
I liked this exercise! It was fun listening to a piece of music to create an abstract drawing.  The music I chose to listen to was a George Gershwin compilation. The image I made (whilst listening to this music) is below: To produce this drawing I used watercolour sticks and pulled the ink out into a wash using a brush.  I then applied coloured ink washes to deepen and enhance the colours in different areas.  I chose watercolour and coloured ink because I felt that this would (somehow) suit the 1930s style/mood of the music. What adjective or word describes the the tone of the piece?   This is a fascinating question because it is entirely subjective, and will probably be skewed on the state of mind of the viewer at the given point of reflection.  Perhaps the interpretation and feelings invoked from abstract art are always transient depending on the current mood/state of mind of the viewer?  For instance, a short while ago I looked at the image and thought "confus
Read more

Part 3: Client Visuals

Image
Exercise details In this exercise I will be taking two finished illustrations and creating the line visual for each one. Visual for Illustration 1  I've chosen a children's book called,  Recipe for Bedtime,  illustrated by Sarah Massini.  I chose the artwork on the cover of the book because I felt it was charming and had a sufficient range of content for me to work with. Initial line visual: I found this exercise to be rather curious. It felt like a no creativity exercise; merely basic observation and drawing skills.  The line drawing was quite straightforward to produce, and reducing down the visual detail into a simple drawing was fairly straightforward.   I think I've been very tight and controlled in this drawing, there is no looseness and expressiveness to the line.  I was constantly mindful of having to create an accurate and sharp line drawing of the original image. I feel that the drawing is fairly successful it is faithfulness to the original imag
Read more