Artworks on paper such as prints, drawings, and watercolours are inherently fragile. Exposure to light can cause fading of media, as well as yellow, darken, and weaken paper. My work explores using the sun as an agent in the making and layering of my prints.
Artworks on paper such as prints, drawings, and watercolours are inherently fragile. Exposure to light can cause fading of media, as well as yellow, darken, and weaken paper. My work explores using the sun as an agent in the making and layering of my prints.
The paper works themselves are block prints. I have created geometric designs, made into rubber stamps which are used for simple block printing. These custom stamp blocks are produced commercially at no larger than 8cm x 10cm with my designs fitting within this measurement. As the blocks enable overprinting of the same design, different patterns emerge through the overlapping of colour.
The project originated while testing the light fast quality of different inks and dyes with constant exposure to sunlight. I found the test results fascinating and this led to an enquiry around how subtraction, removal, fading of colour through the sun could become another step in the printmaking process. This process sat in a junction between control and chance; inks, clouds, rain, sun all played a role in determining how the work would look.
Through a process of masking off areas or leaving the entire surface area exposed to sunlight, some prints have an obvious sun bleaching etched into them, others not. I often rework, recycle, adding further layers to complete the works. Some prints have had a year of reworking in its gestation, others were immediate, and this brings another aspect into the art making that I enjoyed; ‘when is the print truly finished?’
Artworks on paper such as prints, drawings, and watercolours are inherently fragile. Exposure to light can cause fading of media, as well as yellow, darken, and weaken paper. My work explores using the sun as an agent in the making and layering of my prints.
The paper works themselves are block prints. I have created geometric designs, made into rubber stamps which are used for simple block printing. These custom stamp blocks are produced commercially at no larger than 8cm x 10cm with my designs fitting within this measurement. As the blocks enable overprinting of the same design, different patterns emerge through the overlapping of colour.
The project originated while testing the light fast quality of different inks and dyes with constant exposure to sunlight. I found the test results fascinating and this led to an enquiry around how subtraction, removal, fading of colour through the sun could become another step in the printmaking process. This process sat in a junction between control and chance; inks, clouds, rain, sun all played a role in determining how the work would look.
Through a process of masking off areas or leaving the entire surface area exposed to sunlight, some prints have an obvious sun bleaching etched into them, others not. I often rework, recycle, adding further layers to complete the works. Some prints have had a year of reworking in its gestation, others were immediate, and this brings another aspect into the art making that I enjoyed; ‘when is the print truly finished?’
