I really enjoyed this brief and I think it was my most successful out of the 3. I definitely learned from my mistakes and shortfalls during Studio Brief 1 and spent the first part of this brief making sure I devoted time to getting myself out of the rut I felt I was in. At first I was quite overwhelmed at where to begin (I guess this is a good thing) because there was so much rich and interesting imagery and ideas I could dive into within this book. I found the process of pulling out quotes and just open mode playing in my sketchbook without trying to think of a final printed outcome really helped me to get started, and this was something I carried on throughout most of this brief when I was generating ideas. Being genuinely invested and engrossed in the book I was reading was the main reason for the success I felt I had in this brief.
During last year I found monoprint to be a really beneficial process for me in terms of idea generation and confidence. Spending an afternoon in the print room and creating a pile of prints, especially in the experimental unsure-what-the-outcome-will-be approach of monoprinting really helps me to get out of my head and get excited by the happy accidents that can occur. I found the print workshops to be really beneficial, I feel more confident and comfortable in the print room now and excited for the possibilities print-making gives to my future work.
I had one particularly breakthrough day the day after my screenprint workshop where I printed multiples in 2 different colour ways of 2 screenprint designs. This was the most productive I had felt in a while and was definitely a catalyst for getting myself out of the unhappy head space I'd been in at the beginning of this year. Looking back now I've finished my publication I'm really proud of myself for how I worked through that rough mental patch and built my confidence back up to feeling motivated and pleased with the work I've created.
During some contextual research into printmakers (https://c-mceniff1720-sp.blogspot.com/2018/12/printmakers.html) I found myself trying to work in a way of making work to try and create a successful print (for example creating a third colour with two and cleverly using halftones), I realised I was comparing myself to practitioners such as Joo Hee Yoon who whilst I admire her work greatly I realise that this isn't a way I work in. Instead I started to pull from the sketches and quotes I'd been documenting in my sketchbook and making printmaking work for me rather than the other way around? I was very conscious not to lose that emotive and raw image making I was so disappointed in myself that I lost during Studio Brief 1 by creating work that wasn't 'me'.
Near the beginning of this brief Ben showed me the illustrator Henrik Drescher (https://c-mceniff1720-sp.blogspot.com/2018/12/henrik-drescher.html) and the beauty in the mismatch, ephemera, almost artefact type approach to his work. This was a major turning point during this brief and got the cogs whirring for how I could take the way that I work within the personal sketchbooks I use and apply this to making a publication with a collection of elements to tell the story. I'm drawn to the tactile and the special and this is what I wanted to create with my publication, a one off piece which delicately told the story of the God of Small Things through a collection of different prints which still retained the same visual language.
I think colour was my biggest downfall during this brief. Going from the black and white restriction in Studio Brief 1 to the two colours of this brief was quite an odd jump. I think my issue was that I didn't plan the colours I was planning on using enough before jumping into printmaking (especially when screenprinting) and therefore when it came to selecting pieces for my final publication I had a mismatch of different colour ways across my prints and then had to edit them digitally to create a cohesive scheme. I ended up choosing blue to mirror the importance and symbolism of the river throughout the book.
As I wanted to create a one off publication I wanted to find a really tactile and beautiful paper that would complement the contents. I found this beautiful hand-made paper which was splattered with gorgeous flecks and fibres. I think this really added to the final outcome and made the publication feel delicate. Monotype was a process I found really enjoyable during this brief as I'm fascinated in the added random marks and textures it could give to the drawings. I chose to break up each of the double spreads in my publication with a monotype written quote and linking drawing, which I wanted to both break up and simultaneously link the publication together.
Overall I am really pleased with my outcomes for Studio Brief 2, it felt like a long jump away from Studio Brief 1 and it was really good to have the restrictions such as the 2 colours and the necessity of printed media as it made me consider each image I was producing more carefully. Good stuff.
Context behind each of the double spread pages
https://c-mceniff1720-sp.blogspot.com/2018/12/final-publication-pages-explained.html
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