"Storm in a Bottle"
17.5 cm x 13 cm Plexiglas dry point: Oil-based ink on Water color paper October, 2016 Exhibition Text: With drypoints, you can create a thin lined, sketchy looking image, using oil based ink and plexiglass. My goal was to create a nautical themed print, with thin, sketchy lines. This print is meant to pair with my blockprint, "At Sea in a Storm". Aspects are borrowed from that print, with very differing styles, because of how the two printing techniques transfer ink to paper. |
Planning
Brainstorming
When I stated out planning this project, I knew I wanted this print and the block print, "At Sea in the Storm" to be simmilar enough to eachother to be displayed together. I knew because of the differences in how the prints are made, and how the ink is transered to paper, they would look very stylisticly different, but I felt the blocky-ness of the blockprint would contrast well againt the thin, almost delacate lines of the dry point.
I really wanted to play with the feelings assosiated with stormy weather at sea. One of the more common feelings is helplessness, and with how large the ocean is, it usually gives the viewer a feeling agoraphobia. I turned this feeling into a sence of claustrphobia, by placing the entire ocean, ship and storm in a bottle.
I really wanted to play with the feelings assosiated with stormy weather at sea. One of the more common feelings is helplessness, and with how large the ocean is, it usually gives the viewer a feeling agoraphobia. I turned this feeling into a sence of claustrphobia, by placing the entire ocean, ship and storm in a bottle.
Planning Sketch
I knew I wanted this print to be nautical themed like my blackprint, but I wanted them to be different enough to stand out from eachother. By the time I was drawing up sketches for this project, I was getting really good at drawing ships from the side. I drew one that I liked, and cut it out, so I could place it in a way that seemed realistic enough for the waves to push the ship into.I drew the bottle in my sketchbook and glued the ship in, then drew the waves and foam.
The boat was meant to be fairly realistic, like a sketch artists would do at docks, but the waves were meant to be stylistic, with large, swearling waves that can be seen from below. Although there wasn't much for the waves to break on, there was a lot of foam, with littleon the foam to leave it a bright white compaired to the waves below it. There was only minor shading on the sails, to avoid overly complicating what I wanted to be a fairly simplistic and light piece. |
Artist Inspiration
http://urbansketchers-portland.blogspot.com/2011/04/tall-ships-two-days.html
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8b/6d/b7/8b6db773a06fa31c70d05cb1b8c3f6c7.jpg http://shipinbottles.com/uploads/3/4/0/4/34044418/2726621_orig.jpg?350 https://plus.google.com/100270481970497198123 |
My artist inspiration is Deb Rossi, from the Urban Sketchers of Portland. The images I used as inspiration are from the sketches and watercolor pieces she did of the Lady Washington and Hawiian Cheiftin while they were docked in Vancoover.
Deb does a lot of ink sketches and watercolor of landscapes, especially city scapes of urban and suburban areas, though she also does still lifes and natural landscapes. She has a Google+ where she posts her art, and they also gets uploaded to the Urban Sketchers blog. I tried to emulate the delicate, sketchy look of the boats and the rigging, though I didn't use any color in my drypoint. |
Process
Carving
The carving process didn't take much time, and I thought I did a fairly good job keeping all of the lines going in the right directions and making the lines deep enough without having to go over them again, as that would cause a the line to appear thicker on the print.
To carve this piece, I simply taped the piece of plexiglass over the sketch I made, and used the 3-edge knife to etch the lines into the plastic. I quickly realized that I was really hard to see what I had already carved without lights directly overhead, and going over lines to much would make the lines look the thick and bulky. I wanted to avoid this at all costs, because I wanted this print to be very different from the thick lines of the blockprint.
To carve this piece, I simply taped the piece of plexiglass over the sketch I made, and used the 3-edge knife to etch the lines into the plastic. I quickly realized that I was really hard to see what I had already carved without lights directly overhead, and going over lines to much would make the lines look the thick and bulky. I wanted to avoid this at all costs, because I wanted this print to be very different from the thick lines of the blockprint.
Printing
Contrary to the quick time it took to carve the plate, it takes me about 45 minutes to do one decent print. The first thing we had to do was set a sheet of water color paper to soak in a tub of water for about 8-10 minutes. This loosens the fibers of the paper and allows them to fit in the small etches made into the Plexiglas. Then I covered the front of the Plexiglas in oil based ink, and used the paint knife to press the ink into the etching. The long and tiring part is using pieces of newsprint to sop up the ink, without pulling it out of the etches. We used newsprint because if we used something to absorbent, it would suck the ink out of the cracks.
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This took so long because oil based ink smears all over the place, and it makes a right mess that takes forever to clean up. The ink needs to be whiped off completely, or there's a faint grey shadow, and it's really hard to completely clean up the edges to get rid of the black box from the ink pooling at the edges. All of these things result in taking about 40 minutes to try and clean all of the ink up. Once you've cleaned up the ink as well as you can, and your paper has soaked long enough, you change the newsprint, lay the plate face up on it, and the soaked paper on top of that, and another sheet of newsprint over that, then place the whole thing in the print roller to press the paper and plate together. You have to be very, very careful not to shift the paper or plate, or the whole image will blur or smear. Carefully remove the plate and paper, and peal the paper up and lay it on a drying rack to dry.
Reflection
I feel like the design I used worked well with what I wanted to portray, and with the style that dry point printing produces. I would put a bit more effort into nice, clean lines, but it is hard to make the lines curve correctly. I would also try and make a few more decent prints, so I might have one that looks clean. I feel like dry points are a cool way to make intaglio images, but I'm unsure if it's the knives we used or the plexiglas, but it was very hard to precisly control the lines.
ACT Questions
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effects upon your work.
The thin lines and sketchy nature of my inspiration are reflected in my print. Drypoints are made using small pins, which means that I would be using a small, thin lines, but Deb's sketches of ships fit well with the nautical theme I was planning on using anyway.
2.What is the overall approach the author has regarding on the topic of your inspiration?
There was very little personal information about Deb Rossi on her website, but there is information about the Urban Sketchers. What information there was was on her was written by her, so there wasn't much of a positive or negetive opinion either way. There was mostly just some personal background information.
3.What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, ect. while you researched your inspiration?
There wasn't much to draw conclusions about. Drypoints seem to be done on just about every topic, and by just about anyone. It's fairly versatile. The only thing that people always seem to do it use a very sketchy style, because there is very little control over how thick the lines will be without making them look sketchy.
4. What was the central idea or theme of around your inspirational research?
I used the theme of ships in a storm, much like I did for my block print, but I used ships in a bottle for an added effect.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I had to make inferences on how to carve the plexiglas for the best effect, and how the waves would look if it was possible to see large waves from the bottom through glass.
The thin lines and sketchy nature of my inspiration are reflected in my print. Drypoints are made using small pins, which means that I would be using a small, thin lines, but Deb's sketches of ships fit well with the nautical theme I was planning on using anyway.
2.What is the overall approach the author has regarding on the topic of your inspiration?
There was very little personal information about Deb Rossi on her website, but there is information about the Urban Sketchers. What information there was was on her was written by her, so there wasn't much of a positive or negetive opinion either way. There was mostly just some personal background information.
3.What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, ect. while you researched your inspiration?
There wasn't much to draw conclusions about. Drypoints seem to be done on just about every topic, and by just about anyone. It's fairly versatile. The only thing that people always seem to do it use a very sketchy style, because there is very little control over how thick the lines will be without making them look sketchy.
4. What was the central idea or theme of around your inspirational research?
I used the theme of ships in a storm, much like I did for my block print, but I used ships in a bottle for an added effect.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I had to make inferences on how to carve the plexiglas for the best effect, and how the waves would look if it was possible to see large waves from the bottom through glass.