When I first saw Elleanor's photograph I was very excited by the diversity of what I could do with it! The image is soft and dreamy - the possibilities were endless! The gorgeous hues of blue, grey, white and purple evoke a sense of tranquillity, and really capture the cloudy skies of Melbourne. I thought about painting over it, printing over it, drawing over it, or doing a digital collage. I figured that I have done enough digital collages. With Megalo open in Canberra, I was excited to get back in the studio. so I decided to do some screen prints - my favourite print process.
When looking at this image, what came to mind was religious art and themes of Christianity, due to the emphasis on God, the sky and heaven. These themes have been something I've always had a keen interest in. I find Christian art fascinating and I am fascinated by the stories it tells. Renaissance art in particular feels very dreamy and mystical, and even has some surrealist and dream like elements to it. I have always loved this period and saw it as a source of inspiration. I am fascinated by religion and the soft, beautiful characterists of Renaissance art.
Of course, Michaelangelo's The Last Judgement came to mind when looking at the work. I wanted to incorporate similar use of religious imagery where my images would be incorporated in the dreamy sky.
Another reference of renaissance imagery is Titian's Virgin with Child and Saints. I love the dream like depictions of the virgin, amongst the cherubs in the sky. The soft muted colours are reminiscent of Elleanors photo.
Another artist that really inspired me is a French tattoo artist I follow on instagram. They also post a lot of drawings on paper, I am so in love with their style. They incorporate a lot of dreamy, mystical and religious imagery and symbols, but in a contemporary, graphic and stylistic way. I am so in love with these works and incredibly jealous of the artists incredible style! A similar style I took inspiration from, and would love to further explore. Their instagram is https://www.instagram.com/varias_tatu/?hl=en
Here are some sketches that I did, I also look inspiration from this image of Jesus below, and inspiration for the cherubs came from a range of images that I found through researching renaissance paintings and a range of other drawings I found.
These are the drawings which I did, which I planned to expose on the screen to print multiple copies, over Elleanor's photo. I then arranged them into a composition.
I then went into megalo and exposed them on a screen! I don't have photos of the process but here they are drying on the rack. I liked how ghostly the images turned out, which really worked well with Elleanor's image and the theme I am attempting to convey. However, I thought the images were a little too transparent, so I mixed it with a bit of textile ink, which made it more opaque, but not quite bold enough.
Once the images dried, they dried much more transparent to the point where they are barely recognisable in a photo. They leave a very interesting ghosting however, which work successfully with the clouds. However, I feel like the images are too separate and look a little like a tattoo flash, so I have decided to create some interconnectedness between the different images by drawing over the top to accentuate the images to create some unique state prints. I used a while gel pen, silver gel pen and a sparkly gel pen, as they are neutral and compliment the pastel hues of the sky.
These are the 2 images I ended up with. Both involved a strong aspect of automatic drawing, when connecting the objects together as well as simply highlighting what was already there. The drawings are both quite free, and I had a lot of fun completing them. I was able to add more depth and texture with the different coloured gel pens. I really like the faint mark making the sparkly one has created. This one is probably my favourite as the drawings are a little better and the faint ghostly screenprint is more prominent. This one is the one that I have submitted to be marked.
This one contains more graphic mark making, but I found I was really tired when I did this one so I feel like it is much more rough and less work was put into it. The screen print ghosting is barely visible in this work.
Overall, I had a lot of fun experimenting with this task and I really like the themes and imagery that I have explored. However, I'm not really that happy with the end result as I feel like I could have drawn it better and I think at points I got a bit lazy as I was stressed out completing this task in time for submission. I am so glad that I was given this photograph though as I don't think I would have ever thought to print and draw over a photo. This is something I would love to explore further in the future.
Comments