I have prepared more lino tiles - same method as previously. I thought the caustic soda wasn't etching so well, possibly due to a different batch of lino, so I left it on for longer. Now I think I should have washed it off and printed test pieces, before reapplying.
However, I'm trying to find a way of matching my printing method to my theme. I have smashed tiles and printed; now I have torn the lino squares in half. These pieces of broken, cracked lino reference the broken house, cracked and decaying building. When printed together with the rough edges facing each other, the gap or crack between the halves becomes significant. Also, mixing the pieces up means the two halves start to have a dialogue between each other.
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| etched lino tiles torn in half |
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| different halves printed together |
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| different halves printed together |
I am mapping out a layout for a large print, using full tiles and half tiles with the lacquered mount boards rolled up in a base colour, and trapping bits of wallpaper, wrapping paper, newspaper etc.. I need a full day in the print room as the paper is so large and there are so many tiles. I feel like a tiler on a construction site, working to plans and calculating materials needed.
Sketches showing various layouts of tiling
The lino blocks are thicker than the base boards so I was going to have to change the pressure of the printing bed to accommodate this. However, this would mean my registration would go - the paper would no longer be trapped for the second layer. I carried out a test piece using the pressure needed for lino. The potential was that there would not be enough pressure for the base block. However, glad to say keeping the pressure constant worked for both thicknesses. I still have to fathom out how to print a sheet which is larger than the bed.
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| test tiles using constant pressure on the bed |
Again, I'd like to have seen some videoshots of you ripping the lino squares up.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see the sketchbook stuff alongside the prints on this blog.
Try a different display method. Do you remember Lizzy Mills' work last year in Final Show where she made an installation work of all her notes?
Start bringing these drawings and notes into the printed work itself - see what it does. Or take copies and collage them.
Again I want to see the multivalence, the power of your own commentary on your work.
Whenever you get caught up by the process as subject, the work seems to slip away. Remember these are tiles, cracks, floors, walls. The everyday domestic interior's past, the mark of being lived-in is your subject, not a starting point that always ends up somewhere else. So land on the trace, your ripping ups and make the story in your series.
I don't think this is about juxtaposing different halves, sorry.
Where did you go with that laserwork? What about reproducing the crack via laser using your torn crack lino squares as a base? And possibly reproducing the crack on bathroom white, anyway?