Monday, 11 January 2016

Little Dry Point Prints!

I`ve been incredibly bored again, and I needed to find something to do that is related to my coursework unit that can also bulk up my unit and add to my grade...
The only quick thing that I can think of doing that will be easy to do, but show quite a bit of skill and knowledge of techniques... Would be a kind of print. But I`ve done screen prints, Lino Prints, Mono Prints and the only two that I hadn`t tried yet where the two types that I hate. A Collograph print or a dry point, and from the title, I`m sure you can guess which one I went for.

Collagraphs have to be my least favourite form of print making... You get a thick piece of cardboard, or whatever the stuff is, then you cut into it with a craft knife and peel bits back, or add other textured papers on top. Then you coat it in varnish and then print it when It`s dry. You use the exact same ink as a dry point, but I prefer the final look and the technique of the dry point.
For a dry point print, you use a piece of soft metal and you scratch into it to make an image, then coat the whole the whole thing in ink, then take it off and print it in a press.

Since I only wanted a quick technique to do,  only chose an easy design to draw out. You have to scratch really deep for the outlines so you can get a clear black line, well that`s what I do anyways, then I just always make sure that  use finer lines for all of the shading. I always use scissors too, I know some people use nails or different sized nails to scratch into the metal with, but I just prefer to be simple and use a pair of scissors for it.
I don`t even know what kind of paper you have to use, but you have to soak it for a certain amount of time before printing, and because I don`t have coloured printing inks and we only have this paper in white, I had to improvise a little bit with making coloured backgrounds for the print. Unfortunately, I also couldn`t tell that the piece of metal I was using had been cut a little bit wonky, so I ended up printing the finished picture on an un-even piece of metal.
The backgrounds where awkward to make too, I had to do it really quickly when I took the paper out of the tray of water where they had been soaking previously. I had to leave them soaking wet and drop small bits of ink on top and then let it bleed out to certain areas of the paper. However, our sixth form hasn`t had a technician for so long that we no longer have inks. She`s supposed to order in all of our materials that we use for things like this, which means that we have no coloured printing inks and no inks for drawing. It`s slightly annoying and it means that everyone has had to ration the tiniest little things that we can`t buy ourselves. Because of all of this, I had to use a select amount of colours that I had hidden away in some spray bottles in one of my boxes. I only had; Pink, Purple, Green, Blue and Brown and they where pretty old ones too. Since I had left the paper wet and just dropped small amounts of ink on top, they came out in these cute pastel shades that blended nicely into the background of the print.
The only problem that I have with these prints is that there is one pill on all of these prints that has come out darker than all of the other pills, and that`s because I had scratched to deeply with the scissors just on that one pill... I have no idea why I did, but it must of just happened by accident when I was working over the top of all of the mark making.
I have already tried to put the pills on a little shirt, as practice; I`m still not used to the kind of images I should be putting on there or the size and resolution they should be, I can`t find anything that tells you what kind of images you should be using... https://liveheroes.com/en/product/show/139633/aSpuYGNC9Tw7m0PA6YXU

However, I am really sorry....
I don`t know if anyone has actually notices, but recently I`ve actually been running out of work to do. I`ve ran out of ideas and what techniques to use and I`m still begging the art teachers to give us the next project, which will also be my last project before hopefully going off to University... I still haven`t heard anything back from The University Of Derby, they where supposed to get back to me today and give me their final decision, but unfortunetly I haven`t heard anything yet and It`s made me very, very worried.
I do have two more interviews coming up on Wednesday, they`re back to back interviews at Nottingham Trent University. Then the day after I have the orthodontist to have my bottom set of braces removed and then the week after that I`ve got the same all over again, A university interview on the Wednesday and orthodontist the day after to have my retainer fitted.

I`ve been rather busy lately...



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