30.05.11 Family

I've been thinking about how I represent my family and looking around my home for the trigger, I'd considered the collections I have of objects and whether this was part of my representation.

I started to look at printing images of jugs to represent my family but it didn't feel right , but they did look like a family lined up for their photo, all different shapes and sizes.

Whilst looking at photos of them I felt that the patterns were important as part of my home , the colour, the shapes and I thought I may be able to incorporate these into something.

I've drawn some of my family members onto acetate and laid them over prints of china patterns , which has then all been put together into a book/album - it felt right to present it in this way, familiar and domestic.

I have to use a OHP pen on the acetate so that it dries quickly but it's really hard to draw with as it's quite a big tip and there's no rubbing out !! I wanted a surface that was transparent so that I could combine the patterned surfaces with the line drawings but not permanently as I also like the patterns as stand alone items.

Before I made the sheets into the book I took some photos through the glass in a similar fashion to the photo of my daughter that I posted yesterday.The glass as a material is gorgeous, I love the diffused light and the gaps that are completely transparent, it has a frame like quality .

Olivia has just posted a comment about that photo, suggesting I could photograph other family and friends in the same manner, so I may try this as well.
She's absolutely right about me seeing the glass as a window into my space but the reason I made it 3D when everything else is pretty much 2D is that like everything , my space has two functions : one soft , domestic, calm, etc. and the other is vibrant and sociable , so you can chose which way to look  . There is also the merging indoor and outdoor space that I wanted to capture ; a bit like sometimes it's lovely to sit in a warm kitchen next to the Aga , looking at the wind and rain lashing the windows outside but sometimes you need to be out in those elements experiencing them and looking in through the glass to that warm , glowing , cosy kitchen - you need both sides.

I love the slightly abstract quality these have , I know who they are but is it important to anyone else , they're just images. The colours and black line drawing works well together - the diffuse, muted abstract with the sharp, defined black line giving a beautiful balance. It will be interesting to see how someone else views them as to me they're emotional ; the content, colour, the ethereal feel of the light but for me they are also personal so how will someone without that knowledge view them - will they lose those qualities ?

I want to make a bigger piece that has elements of all these individual works put together somehow and I've now learnt that if you're not sure where to begin the best thing to do is just get started.

27.05.11 Printing and Glass

Back to print with my teabags having thoughts of words that I connect to my home.

I was really pleased with the result, it's a really strong, bold image that describes how I feel about my home and involving materials from my home. The image has an interesting structure not unlike the building blocks of a house with the repetitive shapes creating a restful overall image. I've used soft colours as these are my palette and I like the mix of colours which feel as if they represent the feelings and moods I have about my subject. The pink is something I was drawn to as it was fun and actually it lifts the rest of the colours just like the emotions that I've connected it to , so it completes rather than fractures the palette.

I chose the type rather than my writing as I wanted it to feel almost like a recipe , an instruction of ingredients put together to make my home. I kept the type small so that you'd have to enter the image's intimate space in order to receive the information , this enables you to see that the coloured squares are in fact printed teabags. This feels a bit like my friends and family knowing me within my home , they are a step closer to me and so are able to see the detail of both myself and my home.

The changes in colour and the addition of text creates a flow around the image which is accentuated by the space which itself creates a rest.

This looks to simple and in many ways it is but the route to it has been a complex journey through all sorts of images, emotions, and ideas which have led me to this point. I'd like to explore this idea further and see where it takes me next and I'd also like to look at smaller groups of teabag prints to see whether they become stronger in their simplicity or not. As a start I've cropped my image in different combinations to get a feel for this.

I love playing with this, it ticks all my boxes - it just says 'Home' to me.

I also collected my piece of glass which had to be re-fired as the first firing hadn't fused it. There are still a few problems , it has fused but I've lost some clarity maybe due to the double firing and there are several cracks within the piece. There is also a problem with some of the glass frits that I used which were supposed to be a soft blue but have somehow come out red - not great but oddly look like tea leaves.

The layers have worked well and feel like the layers of my home and although the colour elements are not as harmonious as I'd hoped, I like the overall quality of the glass , the transparency that allows you to see through those layers and beyond.
Unfortunately I can't afford to make another piece as the glass is quite expensive but the more I look at it the more areas I see of interest and different possibilities are becoming apparent.

a close up through the glass

and from the other side

I took this close up of my daughter looking though at me and I think this is where my interest lies , with the view through the clear patch with the colour and movement around it. Is it looking in to my perception of home or out ?, I suspect into home but we'll see.

I need to see what images I can get with this when I've got some better light, and see where they take me. As for the red glass where it shouldn't be , I'm learning to live with it which is a bit like life and so home , there are always elements you wouldn't have chosen but actually work very well - serendipity.

25.05.11

I've been playing with tea and tea-bags due to the fact that it's a constant , both day and night in my home. It's something that's there to sooth, comfort, quench , wake you up, help you sleep and it's shape is echoed all over the home ; tiles, windows, tables, pictures and I just love it like my home.

 I have been examining the shapes of the leaves in drawings and embossings and I'm now playing with colours of tea , which is varied to say the least. I've emptied my cupboards and found enough of an assortment to get a good colour mix and have been trying to get prints off the bags.

Cake made from loose tea with a ribbon on the top

This is a print of a tea bag, which  has all sorts of possibilities

Print of the image off the roller after I inked up the tea bag for the print above

Another print of a larger tea bag.

Decided to combine the idea of a tea bag and an image from my kitchen looking into the garden into a lino cut. 

I printed this at home after cutting it,  with water based inks which is why it's patchy as it was drying too quickly. I have used brown paper because it is a domestic material and because of it's colour and texture which remind me of a tea bag. It's very simple but I'm beginning to appreciate that  and I just need to use that simplicity to it's best advantage.

Printed using oil based ink, a much cleaner print and the ink has more depth to it.

I like the feeling of the room being darker , I'm inside looking out into the light. It's calm and light which is what I wanted to show. I would like to see the table in a different colour and I'm not sure about the outdoors. I think I need to play with different methods of putting colour into the print in different places.

I used tissue paper under the linoprint to bring some colour in, but I'm not happy with the green as it s not soft enough and makes it look twee. It also pulls the outdoors in so flattening out the whole image.

Tried using a single colour tissue, it's more harmonious but still pulls the background forward. I'm going to try a few other things to see if I can get a soft harmonious look which is like looking out through a door into a sunny garden.

I printed a monoprint over the lino and I really like the effect, it's soft appears as though you're looking out on to a bright day. The background is no longer coming forward so the cat is in silouette which I think works and the pattern added into the monoprint adds interest without making it fussy.

26.05.11 More Tea Vicar !

Tea-bags this time, found that they print really well after being emptied,

I love the simplicity of this everyday item and am interested to see them in groups - representing a group, family ,  thoughts, feelings ?  Maybe representing all the qualities that home means to me.

This was using the colours that I've printed today, the pink is quite strong and at first glance I wasn't sure but maybe this represents the fun, laughter or love .
Should I put the words onto it ?

This one I took a piece out in order to represent the space that I enjoy within my home - this can be both physical and emotional space.

I tried them the other way around to tie in with the shape of the paper that the bags are printed on

This feels too tall , non-domestic and for some reason I just prefer the paper landscape - perhaps because it ties in with the representation of an emotional landscape , perhaps it just looks nicer ! If the paper was squarer then that might work so that it doesn't feel so tall. 

I'm going to try some printing tomorrow using key words that I feel describe home to me and also look further at the overall shape of the image.

21.05.11 Other work from the week

I put a larger piece of glass work in to be fired so will have to wait until next week for that to come out, I'm hoping to get a loose image depicting the feeling of air and space within my home by showing the outdoor/indoor place that home inhabits for me.

Printed a collagraph which has combined images to give a feel of my kitchen, and then monoprinted an abstract floral texture of a fabric over the cat, using a soft roller so that I could roll the texture directly off the fabric. I love the feel of this , it captures the soft homely feel with familiar objects, the draped cat which you can find regularly and a bit of fun which is important to me.




Played with tea again this time gluing it into the card, so that I could keep the image and do other things with it.

Tried embossing the tea onto paper and it gives a really interesting image, slightly spikey which I suppose represents some of the more tense moments which every household experiences, but also I like the embossed sheet as it's white which is calm  and interesting as your image is enhanced by shadows.

This was the mug above which was something I just wanted to try and then having seen how this image worked I thought about the cupcake and how maybe this could be the carrier for one of the scents of my home. I want something simple but with an additional dimension.

This was my attempt at the cupcake , unfortunately the pressure on the press was too great and so it damaged the paper both creasing it and putting holes in it, I also made this image quite large thinking it would interesting but I prefer the smaller images as it suits the simplicity of the work. i'm going to try again and experiment with how I attach the tea and how much pressure I use on the press. I'm also going to try some different sizes to see which best suits the relief.