In response to some unit 2 feedback:
"It might be interesting to consider thinking about geological terminology as ways of working with - and into - material experimentation, for example ‘overprint’, and ‘trace’. Do repeat visits print over the first encounter? After how many visits does the truth of the event become buried, or do truths emerge slowly with passing time."
Some work focussed on how to layer the different visual elements of what I'm making
What order? Shadow of figures/us walking, followed by paint, followed by geological/map lines?
Or switch around the order?
Layering papers and surface. tracing paper or Chinese rice paper over watercolour paper
Binding, stacking, collecting, taping.
Feb 2024
Having gathered quite a few smaller images, I'm having a go thinking the above comment in relation to overprint and trace. This chimes well with this ideas surrounding burial and memory - or specifically, how memories can be ordered, collated, organised, buried, processed, re surfaced etc etc.
I'm using combined imagery of 'soft' and 'sharp' memories of walks and journeys.
I've also discovered an artist called Jackie Mulner, whose work I think explores similar ideas in a rich and textured way using photo, silk, drawing and stitch. I'm using her work to inform how I approach these experiments.
I began with two fragments I'd made a while ago - ones that show a diagonal line which mirrors the orientation and travel from where I live to a local hospital. It's this line that I've been pondering - how the journey repeated for many years and how the visits were always painful.
I wanted to try this idea of visits to places that layer and repeat, and how this might make them evolve over time.
Can the truth of the event become buried? To what extent do repeat visits print over the first encounter? What about repeat visits to welcome places? Can they bury a sharper event?
I'd been trying out some different papers
and had some marks made that show walks around the Barton burial ground.
I used glue to layer one piece over the other. The diagonal line on the underside piece becomes almost concealed. Maybe when the glue dries the effect with be a bit different. Not sure about the area lift uncovered.
I tore it up a bit and prefer these shapes. The journey is broken, overwritten, buried. Could/should these be attached back together? In what orientation?
Another piece using some different paper. The diagonal line on the underside piece is more obvious through this paper (rice paper). I like the lower area where the paper is sticking more securely to the underside. It looks like trees (even though it's not) and it makes me think I need to try some more photo transfers of some trees at Barton.
Visits to Barton have been over many years - but not frequent. At the moment I'm thinking about how the changing seasons mirror how a place changes for us internally over time.
I had a go aligning these with some other fragments. keeping to a tonal scheme. I hadn't grouped them together so close before.
Next steps: Having looked at Jackie Mulner's use of stitch - is this where stitch could play a part in my work?
March 1st:
As I'm working on some more fragments, I'm discovering the potential for both the rice paper and the fabric like paper ( I don't think it's sold as a paper as such but more like a protective layer for transporting prints I think) and how both create opportunities for layering one image over another.
I'm also using more tracing paper as a surface in its own right rather than just a means but which to do the carbon paper printing.
Yesterday I accidentally put 3 sheets on top of one another just to get them to one side and was struck by the 3 transparent images that came together and seem to unify really well. It made me see the tracing paper in a different way and I'm now going to create some more of the geological/map/walk lines over more pieces so I can use them multiple times within the fragments themselves (rather than just as the lines I draw over onto watercolour paper. I only have A4 so want to get some larger sheets of tracing paper.
I had a go painting a wash over the tracing paper to see how this might work but it crumpled up a bit too much so I'll have to mask it to the table first next time.
Some of the layering experiments from the last few days:
Two traces of the same photo, one on rice paper and one on the lining/protective paper. The effect of the drawing underneath strikes an effective balance I think. Lots more to explore with these papers. I also like the lack of colour! Just the simple line drawings. I can see lots of these existing as a collection and certainly being integrated into what I show in the exhibition.
Using discarded photos (behind) that didn't work out well but enjoying how it looked being the tracing paper here. Where the acrylic transfer medium pulled away from the paper, leaving the transfer patchy, actually looks quite like sunlight breaking through the image.
Arranging and aligning. As I do this I think about the concurrent considerations of the final MA exhibition, but also in what way this idea can be more 'packaged' in a commercial sense. How might these arrangement work as a purchasable piece of art? Does it matter? Maybe not right now but it crosses my mind as I work!
Enjoying the split between these two. What is that space between? Something so lovely about the edge of the transparent paper and how it contrasts with the heavier watercolour paper. Strong and weak together.
March 7th:
Layering varying strips/pieces of different papers and attaching at the top. A sort of half way point towards a sketchbook or bound book. I like the idea of it hanging almost suspected and yet anchored to a point.
Continuing on the idea of layered lines and traces from the update March 1st, I added some traced monotype elements using the carbon paper technique I've become such a fan of.
I think the layers that collide really work, and the sense that the object could be interacted with in some way. You can look at it from a distance and see the layers, but you can also touch it and experience it in a more tactile way. As I made this I considered how this could work in the final exhibition. Do I want some elements that people can touch? I like the idea of this type of 'sharing'. Betty and I had discussed something along these lines in my tutorial, like if some of the fragments 'spill' onto the floor. Perhaps this goes some way towards this?
Trying out a background wash, questioning whether the bright white is too bright? I like the simple pencil lines and it almost feels freeing to leave the colour alone for a bit!
The paper has crumpled here which isn't great, but if I was using a colour sheet underneath as the base layer, I'd take more time to make it flat.
Makes me think about other backing paper I could use. Would this be unifying or might it detract from things somehow? Not sure yet...
March 21st:
Today I wanted to create lots of washes across different papers, in order to carry on these layered/bound/stacked images.
I've discovered that tracing paper doesn't take well to paper, but rice and lens paper does. I therefore thought of having some backing colour somewhere in the layered pieces, so the depth is enhanced.
Ink on rice paper, with left imprint below. It leaves me with two surfaces to work with. Both part of the same, but one a more fragile copy of the other. I like narrative that emerges here, and even more so when these layers are split up and layered further.
