A furry friend

The latest addition to the group of standing sculptures is made from pipe cleaners, and has bamboo canes for legs.

Part of me thinks this is a step too far, and is in danger of being a gimmick.

I like that the legs seem unstable as it adds some tension and the way that the legs are not completely straight gives the sculpture character.

Different methods of display

I've been experimenting with different ways that I could install the same piece of work.

On the wall

 On the floor

 Emerging from a mound of shredded paper

From another world?

Collage

Collage

• a technique of composing a work of art by pasting on a single surface various materials not normally associated with one another, such as newspaper clippings, parts of photographs, theater tickets, and fragments of an envelope.
• an assemblage or occurrence of diverse elements or fragments in unlikely or unexpected juxtaposition

Screenprinting examples

These are some images of recent screen printing experiments.

This print was made by using a unexposed screen (one with no image on). Rather than printing one colour at a time, I added a number of colours to the screen before using the squeegee to push the ink through the screen. I enjoy the unpredictability of what will be produced and the fact that each print is unique.

The above pattern came about through the use of tissue paper to print on. Because that part of the screen got a lot of ink pushed through, the tissue paper buckled when printed on, creating this rather appealing pattern.

The above marks were made by spraying water onto the ink on the screen before printing. Spraying the screen helps keep the ink to the consistency for printing, as opposed to drying on the screen.

The image above is formed from a number of prints of the same design, but each time I printed, I turned the paper around to help reduce the predictability of the pattern.

In these examples, I printed one design in light blue onto the paper and then waited till it had dried to enable another layer to be added in a different design and a different colour.

Screenprinting, mark-making experiments

Over the past few days I have enjoyed spending time in the printmaking workshop doing some screen printing.

The images that I exposed to the screens included a number of scanned mark making experiments that I did with silicone on different surfaces, a pencil drawing, and a few ink drawings of the little sculptures that I have been making.

So far I have concentrated on printing the mark making experiments, and have been testing printing on different materials and using different combinations of colours.

With the image above, I printed onto tissue paper and the delicate tissue paper stuck to the screen as the vacuum on the print bed was not working. When I peeled it off, the crumpled mark left on the screen was interesting, and so when printing the next image I did not flood the screen, but allowed the squeegee to pull through the remains of the ink left from the previous image, leaving the pattern of the crumpled tissue paper. 

Stacking

Some new additions to the family

Layers of paint

Thanks to Elliot for sharing this image with me. It's layers of paint that broke off wooden spoons used for mixing.

http://imgur.com/icG8HnS

Colour match

Cleaning up after a session of casting, I noticed a near spot-on colour match between the colour of the water in which I had been rinsing my equipment and the pair of protective gloves draped over the sink! 

Millipede

Bambi legs

Stilts

Welcome to my new home - studio 5.12

Now that the Newcastle University Undergraduate Degree Show has finished and the undergraduate students have finished for the session (I'll miss them), the Masters students are reallocated into the now vacant studios. We had to complete proposals stating our top 3 choices of studio, and we have now been notified which spaces we have. These are the spaces in which we will be exhibiting in for our Summer Exhibition, and we are now able to move in to the studios and use prior to the exhibition.

My new space is studio 5.12. Here it is:

It is a lovely light room, with great windows that look out onto the Northern Stage and the Student Union. I look forward to spending the next couple of months in here!