Module 6–Chapter 2–Designing with Shapes and Layers

The task was to identify very simple shapes from images of sea and sky from Chapter 1, and, using decorated papers, form patterns dictated by their rhythmical qualities.

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So to start off, I decorated a large selection of acetate, bubble wrap, khadi paper, cartridge paper & newsprint with relief rubbings, discharged ink, fused polythene, etc as per my experiments in Chapter 1.

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I particularly enjoyed working onto an acetate sheet, pulling acrylic paint off the edge of a sheet of plastic, cut with a wavy edge. I like the contrast between the clean, sharp edged where the paint is brushed from the template, and the rough uncontrolled side displaying the brush strokes.
I used touches of thermo-chromatic paint, which changed colour from purple on the left, to hot pink on the right, when subjected to heat.

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I sketched a few rhythmical patterns from the images in Chapter 1 to use as a reference to cut patterns from my decorated papers.
The first image I chose was the photograph of the concentric ripples.

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Initially, not sure how to get started, I tentatively cut some simple shapes from my acetate sheet and laid them over another decorated paper.

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From this new design, I cut out the same shapes, in the opposite direction, and placed this on a sheet of sequin and glitter bonded acetate. This gave me an instant burst of confidence! I loved the result and was compelled to experiment further!

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I pasted the left-over sections to another paper.

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I then sliced both papers into vertical sections and experimented with various ways of combining the two designs….

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I eventually staggered the strips and pieced them together in a random arrangement onto silver foil.

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My next experiment was inspired by Wilhelmina Barnes Graham’s waves.

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I cut waves into a sheet of decorated khadi paper (I love the way this paper takes coloured dyes!) and placed it onto a pattern of discharged black ink.

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I then cut similar waves in the opposite direction, placing it onto an indigo blue bleached background.

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I rotated the cut-out shapes and replaced them in slightly off-set positions.

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I then experimented with staggering the overlaid strips

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…and again in another formation which allowed more of the blue patterned paper to show through.
I really like the way this still gives the effect of fractured ripples in water.

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My third experiment was wavy lines again, placed onto painted & flattened bubble wrap.

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I placed this onto a silver foil background for added reflection, then cut out similar wavy lines. I rotated some of the resulting wavy strips, allowing them to overlap each-other in some places, and to leave gaps in other places. This was then placed on a sheet of newsprint decorated with a relief oil pastel rubbing, overlaid with purple procion dye. Interestingly, this new pattern gives a similar effect to the rippled water pattern in my initial sketches.

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I then cut the design into quarters, rotated the panels and repositioned to fracture and develop the design further.

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I cut lozenge shapes from discharged ink paper and attached them onto another sheet for a rippled water effect, for my forth design development experiment.

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I cut further lozenge shapes from this new design. I placed this onto a relief rubbing with green brusho, and re-positioned the lozenges randomly.

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Using Egon Scheile’s reflected water as inspiration I carefully cut strips of discharged ink paper.

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I cut this into horizontal bands and wove it with strips of bubble wrap.

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I was really happy with this design. I’m more comfortable with geometric structure and order than I am with random, organic disorder, but I do tend to get a little too precious, and scared to push things further, so after taking a photograph, in the spirit of ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’, I cut it up again in horizontal strips of wavy lines, replacing the lines in a staggered formation, and pasting onto a purple sequin waste rubbing.

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Did I take this design development too far? I’m not sure!

Module 6 – Chapter 1–Drawing Methods

I made a collection of colour photographs  of different types of skies or water effects. Some were photographs of my own, some were from Google Images. I was looking for interesting colour combinations and areas of textural effects in the sky, wonderful cloud formations, textural effects and water surfaces - ripples, reflections, froth and bubbles.
 
I also collected images of work by painters who use water and sky as their inspiration.

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Using as many varied drawing implements as I could find, I made marks covering a small area of 4x4cm, inspired by the patterns that I could see in the image.
For size reference, all of the following work is carried out in an A3 sketchbook.

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I then selected a few of the marks made in the previous exercise and made similar sized areas of texture and pattern by building up more than one layer of the same type of mark in each patch, but using different implements.

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SGRAFITTO

I experimented with different types of crayon in contrasting colours, one layered over the top of the other, to see which top layer could be scratched away to reveal the colour below.

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FROTTAGE

I made a collection of textured and patterned surfaces to make rubbings.

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I moved the relief surface under the paper to give different rubbed effects, building up layers of crayoning. I found wax crayon on standard copy paper gave the most successful results in this exercise.

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RESIST METHODS

I used oil pastel and conte crayon to draw patterns, sometimes over texture plates.
I then used a painted black quink ink, green & blue brusho, and purple procion dye over the surface, allowing the liquid inks to flow off the waxy or chalky surface of the crayons.

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DISCHARGE

I painted papers with black quink ink, walnut ink, brusho and procion dye, and let these dry. Colour was then removed using bleach and a variety of different mark making implements. I found this process much less controllable than the others. Bleach dribbled across the page. Sometimes it left large, heavy deposits that bleached colour away very strongly. In other areas it gave very fine, scratchy marks. This gave random, disorderly, but exciting results. I particularly liked the way the black quink ink bleached out to a sort of rusty colour.

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TRANSPARENT SURFACES

Using a sponge brush, I made marks onto transparent acetate with acrylic paint.

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over the top of the acrylic paint, I painted ‘thermo-chromatic’ screen printing ink in purple.

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when subjected to gentle heat eg, radiator or hairdryer, the purple ink turns pink.

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I cut a wavy edge from a piece of paper, and dragged paint from the stencil, over the edge onto the acetate sheet.

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I cut and opened a ‘poly pocket’, painting on the inside, and then refolding. I then fused the poly pocket together using an iron on low heat (over baking parchment).

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I did the same with a fine polythene bag. The polythene melted much more easily and started to shrivel away from the heat quite quickly, however I do like the ‘watery’ effect this gives, so I turned up the heat very slightly and ironed a little longer to intensify the effect.

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Again with a polythene bag, I sandwiched some wax crayon shavings between the 2 layers. The effect was amazing. The wax melted and blended and followed the ripples as the polythene shrivelled and distorted, but it was very difficult to control the right amount of heat from the iron. I was so pleased with the result that I overheated the sample below as I was trying to make it ‘even better’! The bag melted and made holes in a very interesting and dramatic way.

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For the next sample I turned down the heat, but held the iron over the crayon longer. Again, there are some very interesting water marks appearing in the crayon, but I wasn’t quite so happy with the way the colours ‘over-blended’.

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Third time lucky, this was the result I was trying to achieve. Just the right temperature and length of time with the iron, the wax melted without ‘splodging’ and the polythene fused and distorted just enough to give soft ripple effects. I also added a small amount of silver glitter to this sample.

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Thread snippets fused inside a poly pocket.

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Beads and sequins sandwiched between 2 layers of polythene. This secured the components much more securely than in the poly pocket below, which didn’t seem to fuse around the items quite so closely, allowing them to move around.

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Beads and sequins fused within a poly pocket didn’t seem to fuse so closely around the components, allowing them to move very slightly where the sheets hadn’t quite sealed closely up to the items.
I also found the poly pocket to be a little dull and very slightly cloudy, compared to the plastic bag which remained shiny and transparent.

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So then  sandwiched acrylic paint, wax crayon shavings, snippets of thread, sequins and glitter inside a polythene bag, just for fun!

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I dragged acrylic paint over bubble wrap to emphasise the textural surface.

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I pressed the following samples of painted bubble wrap with an iron. The bubble wrap was surprisingly resilient to the heat. I ironed these samples for a few minutes with a full heat cotton setting. The bubbles eventually popped and flattened, emphasising their circular pattern of the bubbles and creating a more translucent, dull, cloudy surface.

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