Throughout this project i have learnt a bunch of new techniques and processes which have really made me change the way i make my images. For me this project has been about mark making and how we can convert our images to compliment various styles of printing. When i first thought about the concept of printing my work it sounded really boring at straight forward, after completing this unit i can definitely confirm that this is not true. Each process that i learnt was different in terms of what medium was used and what mark was being made. Lino taught me about simple shape making and how to communicate ideas and meaning through block shapes. Dry point etching on the other hand taught me how to use smaller thinner lines to create a scratched look thus giving my images more shape and form. Screen printing taught me how to produce one singular print all in one go which is rich in colour and can be printed onto almost anything!
Sublimation printing was my friend during this unit as i did not really like how the other processes made my work look rough and untidy. Sublimation allowed me to work digitally and print out my ideas onto some special card which when heated can print onto almost any synthetic material!
Foil screen printing was also a brilliant process to learn because it really neatened up some of my rough screen prints.
Screen printing was by far the biggest part of this unit and by time i had enough prints to write about i simply had enough of it. Throughout this project i have been pushed away from my normal way of image making and forced to work in a new way, having to adapt my style so it fits into each of the processes. It was fun to strip my images down to the linework to see what new images i could create and i am really happy with all of my adaptations. This unit showed me that it is not always so simple to make an image and sometimes it is the simpler design which takes longer to perfect and is sometimes the more effective method. My final screen prints for the second stage were so fiddly and it was nearly impossible to line them up, manually trying to line each print up slowed down my process and it was really annoying when they didn't come out right!
I thought that my prints from the first stage were too simple and i thought i would up my game in the second stage with a challenge, it was good to challenge myself with such a complex print and it was rewarding when they came out right. If i were to repeat this process i would probably increase the size of my characters so it would be easier for me to overlay the detail because my prints contained 40 characters per page which was really hard to line up.
I would like to have tried to overlap my characters so that they interacted with each other which would have looked pretty cool but i feared losing my image within itself if it wasn't done correctly. A lot more background colours could have been used during my experimentation stage, i manged to use a few different background colours; but i got so carried away with getting the characters perfect that i did not even notice that i was printing over and over again on the same colour background. It would have also been good if i experimented more with some large lino stamps because once that part of the unit ended i pretty much left it behind. Flock could have also been quite interesting because of the textures that could have been given to my images, moss, grass or even cloud like textures could have been created which would have fitted well into the theme.
The theme throughout this project was nature vs man made, when i first read it i thought it would be really boring but now the project has come to an end and i have seen the project through, i actually quite enjoyed working on this unit. It was fun to see how everyone responded to the theme during our collaboration section of the unit where we all got to print on top of each others work!
this unit has changed how i make marks, it has changed how i look at images and most importantly it has taught me that patience is a virtue.
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