MA Week 68 - Successful exhibit and failed experiment

Reflection on the past week, 15^th May 2017

Etching experiments

It’s now May and I need to start to focus on the final project and the hand-in, 3 months away but fast approaching. After enjoying etching so much, I’ve decided to concentrate on intaglio printing to produce my final pieces (so no surprise there, then).

I’ve finally started to work up some of the ideas after the April mini-dérive. I’ve been sketching abstracts of shapes from the walk, and I’m still playing with how they might work together. I’ve also been trialling how best to drypoint circles, as previously pondered. I’ve done a test plate which has given interesting results. I bought a pair of dividers but I think they are a bit light weight for this task. However, the rather faint mark they made gives depth to the plate as it contrasts with some of the deeper marks, so perhaps there is something to pursue there. I’ll continue to work on this.

 

Playing about with circles and acetates

A disappointment was a failure with grounding a plate. I’d applied soft ground to a previously-used copper plate, which I’d re-prepared according to what I’d learnt so far. I wanted to press it onto the grates I photographed to try to get some surface texture. I tried this but it didn’t work – I think the two surfaces were too flat, and Mick (the Print Room manager) said this was probably the case. By this stage I was already unconvinced by the ground, but tried making some further marks into it and biting it. When I came to rinse it, the ground rinsed off. As far as I can tell, it hadn’t adhered to the plate properly. I can only think I didn’t clean the plate enough before I applied the ground, but I’d spent quite a lot of time soaping and re-soaping it. Back to the drawing board with that one, but at least this setback is early on in the proceedings and I can rethink the idea.

 

Exhibition exposure

I forgot to mention a couple of weeks back that I had had a piece accepted for the “Framework” exhibition at the Old Red Bus Station bar in Leeds. The exhibition is to raise money for Leeds Women’s Aid and the organisers (coincidentally also students at Leeds College of Art) wanted pieces that would be suitable for viewing by children. As that rules out a lot of my current rather darker work, I submitted a painting of some lilies that I did a couple of years ago and was delighted to get it accepted. Even better, I met up again with Michelle before the opening last Thursday and we talked more about developing our work together. There were a few other familiar faces from the MA course too and it was a really lovely occasion.

My piece is the flowery one at the top. Honestly.

 

Academic thoughts

I also met up with Zoë again to chat more about how the walking event will work on 1^st June. As always it was an interesting and insightful discussion. It set me thinking in much more detail about how it is going to work. I think the paper I’m giving in the morning in Manchester will have some overlap with it, as I’ve been working on the basics of that, too. More thinking to do on both those topics.

 

Looking at this blogpost – I have actually done quite a lot over the past week! It didn’t feel like it at the time. That’s the value of reflective practice, I guess.