Photography around Aberystwyth

Some of my recent photography.

Sunset, the sun was aligned perfectly with the statue.

Another sunset.

Close up of the statue.

Starlings!

Graffiti on a road sign.

Reflections in the water.

Hope you like them!

Using prints differently

Mini post here showing a couple of examples of my Chine-collé prints.

On this print I hand coloured my Linocut moths, then glued Gampi prints on top.

Close up of one of the moths.

On this print I did a similar thing, but instead it is Gampi over a woodcut that I did earlier. I also stuck scrap pieces of the Gampi around it to make the picture seem to have more movement.

I intentionally left the edges unstuck as I felt it created a nice effect.

Tiger Moths - A Reductive print

 A Reductive print uses only a single printing block, which is printed in stages, each time cutting more form the block. I decided to continue with the moth theme for it, this time choosing Tiger moths.

For my first layer I printed a "rainbow roll", that is, a blended multiple colour layer.

Mixing and rolling out colours.

The first print.

I printed out 7 copies, as I wouldn't be able to reprint them after starting to cut into the wood.

I realized that I should have cut out the white first, but I remedy that later by printing a layer of white!

Next I cut out a grassy background, remembering that what I cut out would stay the previous colour I printed.

The wood after cutting.

I printed a dark to light green rainbow on this layer.

A nice warm red I made by mixing Rubine red and Apricot inks.

Red moths!

The white that I didn't add earlier, actually is a nice cream colour, which is better I think.

The final layer is a mixed black made from ultramarine, apricot and rubine red.

The final print can be seen here.

Life drawing with colour pencils

  I decided to try to do life drawing with my pencils instead of Photoshop, at first I wasn't convinced but I am still trying.

My first pencil drawing, I felt that the colours were too bright, but I like that I've included more of the surrounding scene. It is unfinished as I ran out of time!

I really like this one, the softness of the colours seem to work well and the linework is nice too!

I feel this one is a little less successful, as the softness of the previous drawing isn't there. 

Engraving and more moths.

  Recently we started engraving in class, I found it to be very enjoyable as I like doing fine detail in my work.

To get a feel of things, we were given some plastic to engrave into, as it's cheaper than wood.

Random mark-making practice, with a moth-like creature!

My first wood engraving, a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth!

Deaths Head Hawk-Moth engraving.

Deaths Head Hawk-Moth from above, my favourite engraving so far!

An engraving of hawk-moth wing scales, after I observed them under a microscope.

I decided to do a print of all three engravings on one piece of  paper.

Continuing my Linocut moths, I've added three Hawk-moths to the original four Silkmoths.

I will try to get some better pictures of the engravings with my camera!

Life Drawing 29/10/13

This week we did two poses in life drawing, for half the normal amount of time.

This was my first picture, I personally dislike it.

I prefer this one, the lighting seems better.

Printing Silkmoths

I've been trying out Japanese vinyl in printmaking, I had the idea to print some silkmoths after finding an old book of mine "Rearing Wild Silkmoths"

I cut out four silkmoths, due to the thinness of the vinyl, I can cut out individual shapes rather than sticking to a square format.

Here is my test print, after which I did a little more cutting to neaten it up.

Some more formal compositions, the rightmost print is on a fibrous Japanese paper who's name eludes me. 

Repeated print on Gampi paper. 

Repeating a single moth, three dark prints and five faded prints on Gampi.

Next I will try cutting out and chine-collé.

Lizard Printmaking continued

 I cut out the scales of the lizard and printed it over what I printed before, I also did some experimenting on different papers.

 

My failed test print, looks kinda nice now!

One that I'd colored white using silk screen printing

I'm not sure if I like this one or the next one the most!

Hmm, this one is my favourite!

A random pink one I printed, I only printed black on the lizard and used a mask to prevent the background from printing.

Experiments with Gampi paper, a beautiful Japanese paper that is transparent, here I have printed on both sides to make a mirror image.

Here I printed several times, rotating the plate each time without recharging the ink.

Trying out different papers!

A close up of the head.

Life Drawing 22/10/13

The hair was a lot of fun, but I need to practice backgrounds, I will look at how other artists do backgrounds in their life classes.

Life drawing 15/10/2013

Was trying to incorporate background and more texture on the skin, while I am pleased with it I don't like it as much as last weeks painting.

Printmaking Classes

  In printmaking I have been learning relief printing, woodcut, silkscreen printing and using stencils. We were given a 12x12 inch piece of wood to use, I decided on an Armadillo girdled lizard as my subject.

Drawing the design onto the block using a marker

Rolling out the ink onto a glass plate

I decided to try using some stencils first so I inked up the whole block before cutting into it and cut out some stencils to place on top.

The resulting prints, note the nice grain of the wood.

a couple more, the one on the right had too much pressure so I couldn't smoothly roll the press over it.

Another stencil I made blocked out the whole background, printing a lizard shape onto a screen-printed background.

A stencil that has the reverse effect of the previous one, the one on the right was registered bad so wasn't aligned.

To be continued...