Wednesday 29 June 2011

Bunker - Hill 60


And this is the photograph.

Collatype print series - Bunker, Hill 60 (critical appraisal)


I was so enthusiastic about collatype printing that I decided to do another series based on a photograph of a World War One bunker located at 'Hill 60' (because it is 60 metres high) that I had taken whilst on my tour of the battlefields and graveyards'. This man made hill exchanged hands several times during the war and several VC's were awarded as a result of different offensive and defensive actions. In the end the hill won and I can imagine it soaked in the blood of both sides.

What attracted me to it was the symmetry of the white paths around it and the rugged mass of it's structure bullet riddled but defiant. I could imagine the soft flesh of the soldiers breaking and disintegrating as they were thrown against it. The lush surrounding vegetation and the peaceful birdsong also seemed incongruous against the knowledge of it's history and yet those bodies had been subsumed into the very soil that nourished such a verdant location.

I used the same textural surfaces as in my Spencer series but experimented in the way I inked up the blocks. On some I smeared diluted inks of different colours and then partially wiped some off and on others I used a roller. I also tried over printing areas of the bunker with a light blue to create a third colour where they overlapped. I don't think this was successful but it's a valid technique that I will experiment with in the future.

One side of the path around the bunker I did in a blood colour to represent the blood of the soldiers and then the other side of the path I did in yellow mainly to try and lift the picture. Throughout I was keen not to stick rigidly to the tonal values of the original photo and only loosely to stick to the colours, I was more interested in the mass of the bunker, the interlocking path shapes and the sensuous riot of texture in the foliage.

I planned most of it thoroughly apart from the yellow path which might or might not be a failure. The finished series of four prints are all different because I tried applying different inks in different ways with each one. I chose to use cartridge paper because I have found it to be more resilient if rubbed when wet and I wanted a crisp whiteness to reveal the textures.

I don't think the series is outrageously successful although it is very interesting and unlike anything I have ever done before. I hadn't realised texture could be so seductive. I found myself trying different things and peeling back the paper in anticipation of new discoveries each time and thoroughly enjoying the whole process.

I aimed to show the mass of the bunker which I feel I only partially achieved. I aimed to show the interesting geometry of the paths around the bunker which was more successful but still could have been more geometric. I aimed to show the riotous texture of the foliage and in this I feel I was most successful.

I think overall I lacked clarity of objective. I had in mind a sort of Graham Sutherland semi organic, semi geometric abstract and maybe I should have gone more abstract but in the end I tried to do too much and the message is consequently confused; is this a print of a bunker or a textural abstract? Actually there is probably too much texture and it would have been better to contrast some of the textural passages with some lino blocked areas of solid colour.

I felt drawn to collatype throughout this assignment and may well combine it with other techniques in my final series of Assignment Five.'

Stanley Spencer Arrives in Heaven


I still had Cookham, Spencer and the World War One artists in my mind when I was thinking about an image for my collatype print series. It occurred to me that I could take Spencer's painting 'John Donne Arrives in Heaven' and do a version of it with Spencer arriving in heaven to be greeted by angels. The iconic image of Spencer pushing his push chair through Cookham seemed appropriate. I decided to create the angels by drawing them into filler and printing them in intaglio but in a vague dream like way. By accident some of my test prints using carborundum on plywood had created some interesting contrasts between the texture of the plywood and the the texture of the carborundum and I could sort of imagine the exposed plywood being a slightly comic little man. I experimented with these combinations and evolved a stencil shape to represent Spencer. I printed the angels first on soaked Somerset paper in a landscape format and did about five. I chose a gold brown colour using burned Sienna and some yellow Occaldo oil based inks. I wiped the ridges of the block and pushed the paper down into the troughs with my fingers on the back of the paper. I was quite pleased with the effect and let them dry.

I cut out my stencil from cartridge paper and placed it on my ply wood and then covered the whole with PVA, sprinkled carborundum on it and removed the stencil. When it was dry I covered it with blue ink diluted with oil using an old hog hair brush. I added more colour to make the ink slightly violet as the series progressed. Finally I back drew the wheels of the pushchair with a blunt pencil and on one even experimented with back drawing around the stencil image, this was a complete failure but has an attraction and I will use it as a technique at some point in the future.

I didn't like the finished image. The comic image of Spencer didn't say 'Spencer' and it didn't work in landscape. Also I began to think the whole idea wouldn't work because it was all too vague.

I had a rethink and decided to use a tracing of Spencer pushing his pushchair that I had on a postcard I bought whilst in Cookham. I cut a small paper easel which would appear white on the finished print. I made a block out of cardboard and placed the stencil of Spencer on it then covered the whole with PVA and sprinkled carborundum all over it then removed the stencil. When it was dry I inked up the block using oil based ink diluted with vegetable oil as I had run out of Linseed oil and then placed the easel stencil onto the inked block. I had run out of Somerset paper and so I used tinted Ingres pastel paper soaked with a water spray and left between bits of blotting paper weighted down for about five minutes. I used the same colours as before and the same method and block for the angels but this time done portrait.

This image worked better and I achieved a measure of success I believe, there is a ghostly feeling to the image of Spencer and where the vagueness of the angels is matched with the vagueness of Spencer the prints achieve a certain cohesiveness. The warm angels on buff tinted paper contrast the cold blue/violet image of spencer.

Descriptive statement of Collatype boards

The A3 plywood board had 16 different items stuck to it but I found that only about three of them appealed to me: the filler, the bubble wrap and the screwed up water colour paper coated with PVA. I subsequently tried another board with filler drawn into it with a palette knife and with wire wool coated with PVA. The wire wool definitely had potential.

My tutor mentioned using carborundum powder and I researched this on the internet and bought some coarse grained and fine grained and experimented with this sprinkled onto PVA and mixed with PVA and applied with a knife. I did several test prints using carborundum and really enjoyed the subtlety of the effects I got, it has so much potential.

To summarise, the different surfaces I decided to use were:

1. Screwed up water colour coated with PVA
2. Wire wool coated with PVA
3. Filler drawn into with any sharp object like a nail
4. Carborundum, sprinkled onto PVA or mixed with it and applied with a knife

I also experimented with using stencils to block out carborundum leaving the texture of the plywood block exposed. Around the edges of the stencils there was a ghostly white line where the paper accommodated the slightly raised surface of the paper stencil.

The different textures from the above surfaces ranged from tiny dimples with carborundum to highly complexed ridged textures from wire wool. There were also subtle differences between filler drawn into and PVA/carborundum mix spread and drawn into. The filler had harder edges as it dried quicker. The screwed up watercolour paper gave the texture of damaged concrete.

I found the textures I created to be highly tactile and seductive and I wanted to go on experimenting with combinations and applications and stencils cut and torn. This method of printing has enormous potential and I don't feel I will exhaust it in this course.