Currently in my subject work I have been looking at the natural and organic forms created by the nature and weather on the rock pools in Southerndown. I drew this idea of taking inspiration from the landscape from my original chosen artwork by Teresa Lanceta ‘Rosas Blancas’, who draws inspiration from Morocco, especially its textiles. I have created these asymmetrical ringed shapes from the natural shapes I gathered from the rock pools.
As I have discussed before, I have developed a fixation with the colours orange and blue, and the harmony between the two complementaries. Therefore I decided to continue my orange and blue studies on and use them to layer up in my screen prints. I really like how they have worked with my prints, as I think using the method of screen printing has also been complimentary to them as of create flat, bold areas of block colour. I especially like the areas of my prints in which the two colours overlap as it creates depth against that flat surfaces of one colour.
Although I am really pleased with my prints and their ever-changing compositions, I can’t help but feel like something is missing. I want to take my prints to the next level. I discussed my prints with both visiting artist Julia Hopkins, and the printing technician Tom. Both suggested some really interesting ways to develop my work. Hopkins talked about playing with the transparency of my prints, due to her also agreeing that the most interesting areas of my screen prints being where the lines of the forms overlapped. Whenever I have screen printed before I have stuck to bold, flat colours. Although I like the use of dense thick sections of colour, it would be interesting to play with the transparency and hence the layering up, and how far I could push it.
When I spoke to Tom about my prints he discussed the use of puff medium, which creates a raised surface if you apply heat to the print. I had no idea you could create a raised surface in screen printing, and this is definitely a technique I want to look into further, I might see if I can buy some to trial this with.
After my two discussions with Julia Hopkins and Tom, I have also thought about how I could disrupt my shapes. Be this by cutting them up and braking the rings, collaging them back together in a way that may not make sense, taking this idea of playing with shapes and colour even more. I may try and combine my current shapes as well with concentrated patterns and textures and experiment with layering these up. Another brief idea I have thought about is printing on a textured surface to break up the strong sections of colour and shape.