Sunday 3 January 2010

Making Miniprints 6



Just to conclude from the four previous posts on the subject - Once I had settled on the colour for the 'background" and printed a few of them up I thought I would try out another image before I got stuck into the "twins entwined" image.  I had this image from an infant anatomy that I came across and its from the early 1800's I seem to remember I had distorted it and gave it a whirl but nah .  Nothing doing.    I even ytied it a second time on a stronger background but still it just didn't work for me.


With the small lower plate it certainly was troublesome keeping a sense of consistency as it was done using monotype as in, scrunched up 'Kit Kat' foil wrapper, dabbed onto a layer of rolled on green ink.     You can see that from the two 'blank backgrounds on the left - also time was running out eek !!!
Also I had tried to ensure that I had mixed up enough of that particular colour green which was made from 3 colours  - which I now can't remember.    Just as well I don't have to make any more of those prints.!!!
  I did far more 'backgrounds'  than I needed at least about well say 18 altogether.  Many just had a tiny unwanted mark or thge plate was ever so slightly crooked.  Tia came round one of the Saturdays I was working on this with her daughter Michelle,  who had previously done a bit of printmaking in the studio working on a few small drypoints on perspex and had made one lovely little print which I must get a jpg of to post on here.


I was really pleased when M said she  wanted to help while her mum went off to town, to  meet a colleage  about a project.     I got M. to help with inking up and rolling and I seem to remember she even did a few of the "scrunchings"  of the small monotype plate element.  I was also having to make up more colour by now so there was a small amount of variation in the colour but I tried as hard as possible to maintain the consistency.
Here's another fun one I tried out I made this little creature ages ago but am fond of it and will at some point include it in a piece for some reason or other though I decided against it at the time.

I fiddled about with the image of the twins in the dress which incidentally was  a scan from a collagraph I made from an actual girls dress,  that I have yet to possibly make into a print.  I thought it didn't look right just being straight down and wanted it to somehow feel or be suggestive of a botanical plant.

Then there was the matter of getting the color hue correct so it either had to be reddish or more dark green.  Some of the more astute observers may by now have noticed that the smaller plate was by now positioned in the lower half of the image as opposed to the other way round .
 This had been my previous arrangement and I still wasn't happy with things.
 I happened to ask C.'s opinion on this and he suggested turning it upside down and then it just seemed right.  Mostly I don't take too much notice of stuff he says but on this occasion.... ....

Of course once I was OK with that I had to have a little effort at doing a different effect with the little plate area but then thought that that might too "fiddldee  diddledee" to effect for the amount of proofs I'd need to do so best to stick with what I had already done.  Then one final stab with the scissors to see what that would look like and I quite liked it.  I managed to get the edition of 10 sent off just in time to meet the deadline and felt quite happy with what I had sent off.  If you want to see the actual finished print then check out my print and the work of the numerous other printmakers internationally who contributed to this project which was very well managed and co-ordinated by Green Door printmakers in Derby.  They seem like a really friendly and lively print studio.

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