Semester one- Printmaking

During reading week in the first semester I decided to take my work in a more personal direction. I begain looking for some artist inspiration and came across Christian Boltanski who's main focuses were memory, identity and loss, topics which throughout the last two years i have continued to touch upon in my work. I began to think about my identity, my memories, life experiences and upbringing and realised that i dont know very much about my family's past so I decided to take a trip back home to see my family. I visited my grandparents and asked them if i could have a look at some old photographs. We came accross a box of old photographs of lots of relitives, many of whom i had never seen or heard of before, and most of whom died a long time ago. I wondered about the identity of the people, even my grandparents couldnt name some of them off hand!

Apart from being quite personal to me and my family the old photographs were beautiful, black and white and tinged with age, curling at the corners and covered in hair like creases. Some were more worn than other with tears and scratches-real evidence of time.

After reading week I had a printmaking module in uni.I learned the process of etching which i enjoyed, however i didnt feel that the end result worked very well with my ideas. I started working on some lithography prints using scans of the photgraphs i had taken from home. I really enjoyed litho as it is very productive and easily corrected if anything goes wrong! Here are a few of the lithography prints that i made (i have lots more still to upload) :

These are lithography prints of my uncle done in purple ink overlapped by lithography printsof some family title deeds done in grey ink . I inked up the litho plate of my uncle and scattered some ripped up pieces of newsprint over it before taking the initial print. I then inked the title deeds plate and took the scraps of news print off the first plate, reversed them and put them over the title deeds then printed this over the initial print to get this result.

I collected all of the scraps of paper and photographed them and then hung them from string in the studio (note to self:INSERT IMAGES HERE!)

This was the same technique only both prints were done in black ink. I prefer this result.

I then went on to experiment with different types of paper ; transparent papers like tissue and tracing paper, paper which had photocopies of the photographs and various drawings i had done which i then printed over and textured paper made from natural fibres. I also printed onto twigs and leaves that i found lying about and used these later to put into bottles (which you'll see on my next blog!)

This is a print made from tissue paper which i folded before printing onto and overlapping with another print. I put it on a light box before photographing so that you can see the different layers.

This is a print i made using three different types of paper folded and stuck together. Although you cant see the print in this photograph it is nice to see the different layers with the light shone through them. I then took the 3 pieces of paper apart and presented them as 3 seperate prints.