Melbourne Week Eight

My final days in Melbourne have been mostly spent staring at art. I have known about Ron Mueck's work since the Sensationalist group show in the UK but to see it is another story completely. I wondered about the effect of making art on a larger scale, how it enables the viewer to easily engage in contemplation. His work is first a feat of realism, and challenges issues like body image. For me, I am most attracted to his focus on parts of the body that its owner has a relationship with, that are unique to oneself. The shape of your toes, the wrinkles in your lips.



I walked down Melbourne's laneways spotting for the perfect seat at one of the hundreds of cafes. I loved the idea that although I knew that I would sit down to sketch a tea pot, I had no idea what it would look like, or how much of a challenge it would be to draw until I chose a seat. Of course, I was delievered a stainless steel pot, which committed me to 3 hours of concentrated sketching, and of course, a caffeine high!

Melbourne Week Seven

One of the things that I find the most appealing about still life's are the shadows that one object casts onto another. It challenges your perception of where the main source of light is coming from, and works to add a further realism. It also creates a tension that is unavoidable.

I stumbled upon this painting at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. I found the foreshortening really interesting. I am sure it informed the foreshortening used in the toothpaste in my sketch - although mine is a whisper compared to this massive painting!

Dressed to impress

So just after I posted my last post I decided that I couldn't possibly make my last drawing into a mezzotint... basically it was a case of size and the fact that this was my first time doing the technique.  I decided to make a little something else... here's the drawing and the print will show up sometime soon!

Melbourne Week Six

Back to Sydney for a second weekend I noticed straight away that I was more familiar with this city. Is it the amount of time that you spend in a place or the return to a place that creates familiarity?




Going to Sydney also means coming back to Melbourne. Unlocking the door to my room in East Melbourne, I know what is inside, I know how I left it, and that is comforting to me. I have started to create a Home but there are still tensions.


The everyday - our routines, establishing habits. All these add to our sense of placement. What about the products that are apart of these every day scenes? My kitchen soap at home does not look like that. I wonder how much foreign labels effect your immersion into the Home environment.

Big Man Small Man

As I've been really really busy working in the studio on some of my prints, I've found that drawing in my book has taken a little bit of a back burner to all of the other action going on. That said, in the spirit of Sacha's last couple posts I wanted to pop up a little something that I'm working on for a mezzotint workshop that's coming up. It's far from a complete drawing, but process is fun to check out too...

Melbourne Week Five

This is a little doodle of my travel shampoo container. It was a blast to draw. Such a nice feeling when you aren't held back - no tentative marks, no self doubt - you just draw it, as you see it, in your own voice/hand.

I went on a drive along the coast this weekend. I watched three sets of rain clouds come and go past me. The views were so expansive - I cannot imagine really being able to commit them to canvas. In fact, they don't even feel remarkably the same in photograph form.

Melbourne Week Four

This week I went to Sydney. I was staying with my friends and could not help but notice how comfortable their apartment was compared to my hotelroomliving. I concentrated on the corners of their apartment, the placement of photographs, the blanket on the couch, the candle sitting beside the remote control.

Back in my hotel room, I concentrated on my bag on the floor, the toilet roll being folded into a triangle by the maid, the old duvet cover which must have soldiered over 1000 washes. I scanned the walls, seeking any identifier of Home. My book. My hand cream. My cup of tea that I left sitting out.


I find it interesting how easy it is to stake a claim on the standard amenities in ones house. Sometimes all it takes to make it yours is a pot of cream:

Semolina

Continuing on with my kitchen series, I present the lovely Semolina. Not complete yet, but definitely in a stage nearing completion.

I wanted to run through the basic process of getting to this point step by step.

First, I draw the image in pencil in my sketch book... just as I would with pretty much any other drawing.

Next I carefully coat my polished plate of metal, in this case zinc, with soft ground. When the ground has been successfully applied I wrap the plate with thin tissue paper and begin redrawing my drawing exactly (or as close to as I can) in reverse onto the tissue paper. This is a delicate process as the soft ground is pressure sensitive, so any mark I make with my pencil or finger or whatever is a mark on the plate/design. Making sure not to press too hard or too light  with my pencil is also a bit tricky,... too light and i don't make enough of a mark, too hard and the line gets blown out. I tend to fall into a groove as I go and adjust my pencil weight as I go along. In this case, transferring the image took a full 24 hours of work.

When all of my drawing is complete and I'm absolutely sure I've covered all areas of shading & line I get to unwrap the plate like its Xmas morning. Beneath all of my pencil work is a delicately resolved transfer in the soft ground...

From here it's into the nitric acid for about 25 minutes. When I remove the plate from the acid I usually do a quick test proof to see how the soft ground etching turned out.

It's basically a one-shot deal, but from here there are many options to start refining the image. In this case my image turned out pretty well with just the soft ground, but the nature of doing this method produces a really soft image where as I need something that is going to have a real harmony of hard lines, soft lines, and a variety of tonal values.  In this case I use the initial soft ground etching as a starting point for hard ground etching.

After applying hard ground I use fine needles to add various elements of detail as well as to firm up some of the finer lines that I need in the image. Here are the progressions through a couple layers of hard ground etching...

Finally, I fill in all of the remaining tonal values with different levels of aquatint. Aquatint is a process by which i coat the plate with resin powder and then melt it to leave a very very fine layer of resin bumps on the plate. When I put the plate in acid, acid seeps into the spaces between the bumps producing a hole for ink to rest in. With more holes in the plate I can achieve darker tones. More time in acid = deeper holes. By putting the plate in the acid for different amounts of time I can get different shades of grey. Of course I need to block out areas that can't be effected each time i put the plate back into the acid. Here is the end result...

Anyways, that's how it's done! I hope to finish this one off soon so I can press on to the next.