WEEK4

19.4.2021

Killer shoes in the making.
A picture of the prototype finished piece will have a different tying system.
Challenges:
balance/stability (make a thicker heel/root)
Root material - strong enough to bounce back when I crawl with the shoes on my feet but not so stiff I can't walk (hot water activated malleable plastic? toy snakes?)

20.4.2021

We began the studio day by making posters for our project. I have already made some posters but not in print so this was quite fun. Also, I was inspired to try and do a two colour monoprint. I think it worked quite well! The title is not the most attractive, visually, as I simply did washi-tape before making the first layer of ink. I was thinking of other options (cutout -->would have to be attached in a detachable way, yarn-->would move) so I went with this and accepted the look. If I did this again, I would buy masking fluid for the title. I continued the idea with these two colours using an intaglio print that more or less failed (I had drawn outlines of roots on it but they didn't show in the print as there was too much ink/it was the first one with the ink) as a base and doing monoprinting on top of it.
I want to do this more and continue some of my intaglios by adding text or more imagery.

With these prints above and underneath, I used the rubbing technique; putting things under the paper and then rolling over it with ink. It gives off a bit of a scanned x-ray look which I like as it fits the roots theme which interacts with both the natural world as well as our inner one (psychologically).
On the right-hand side I tried a very diy intaglio by putting a paper on top of an inked plastic sheet with yarn on it and then pressing. To imitate the intaglio technique further I used a soft (kånken backpack sitting thing) piece of foam and walked on top of it. I also did a second print like in intaglio, to get the second version.

20.4

During lunch, I gathered interesting thing from the park so I could try more diy intaglio. The accuracy isn't great which is not that surprising as even with the foam in between the paper and the plastic, it does not quite reach all the tiny corners. The feathers turned out surprisingly good through.
I wanted to use feathers because I realised that in some ways, wings are the opposite of roots as they represent freedom and are in many ways very detached from everything. Even psychologically, trying one's own wings out/spread wings often describes gaining independence and doing things by oneself. And children flying the nest describes the move away from the family house.
In many ways, the dilemma I have in my personal life is also very closely tied to this; whether to choose roots or wings, stability or freedom.
The prints did not turn out that well as the diy intaglio is not the best method ever but I want to try the same design using the actual intaglio method.

21.4 Wednesday

I went to the print studio today to do some intaglio and monoprinting. I brought some feathers and plants with me to try out the idea I got idea (roots or wings). What I learned in the process is that of course the plant will explode under the intaglio press pressure so I got this green piece of nature on my work. It kind of breaks the illusion created by the blank shapes so I still want to try again. I also tried an old leaf under which I made roots out of detangled yarn.

With monoprinting I first tried some colour playing with violet and yellow after which I recreated some ideas I tried for the first time a couple of weeks ago in the studio. I really like the "which route to take" wordplay. In some ways many of these works of mine always arrive to the same point which is me being lost, not knowing which route to choose; the route or stability or freedom.

When I came home, I filmed some ink spread painting as I have been thinking of making a short video essay/intro into my project. This would tie most of the routes I've explored together, going from the root shape to it's symbolic meanings and to its meanings to me personally.