Certificate Module 5 Chapter 1

This new beginning is very refreshing for me after having been so bogged down in Module 4.  I go out walking regularly with several groups and these woodland walks near my home gave me inspiration for lots of photographs.  I seemed to see texture in the landscape everywhere I looked.   I took the photos initially in colour, using my mobile phone's camera.  Later, I transferred them to my computer and used Photoshop to convert them to greyscale and sometimes to resize them, crop them and play around with the brightness and contrast so as to accentuate the textures.  Here below is a random sample of some of the many photos I took.

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I played around with some of these images, drawing and making some lino prints in order to find out just what it was about these images that made me photograph them.  I find that working with an image, drawing, painting or printmaking helps me to isolate what it is about the photo that drew me to that particular image.  I have been particularly interested in printmaking recently, particularly lino printing and monoprinting and am finding it fun to explore my images in this way.  When time permits, I hope to make more lino plates from other photographs.

5.1.23 lino print of ferns

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Images 24 and 25 above are both monoprints of exposed tree roots on a grassy bank.  The first was done by rolling ink onto a glass plate, carefully laying a sheet of paper on it and drawing the shape of the tree roots with the end of a thin paintbrush.  27 was done by rolling ink onto the glass plate, drawing the shape of the tree roots into the ink using a cotton bud, laying a sheet of paper over the image on the glass and rolling over it with a clean roller.

5.1.26 monoprint of foxglove flowers

5.1.27 lino print of tree branches

5.1.28 print of tree branches made by pressing the clean lino plate used for image 28 onto a Gelli Plate which had been rolled with black paint.  A print was then taken from the Gelli Plate.

5.1.29 a lino print of ferns

5.1.30 a Gelli Plate print of ferns produced by the method described above

5.1.31 two of the lino plates used

I am interested in trying Maggie Grey's idea of casting water soluble paper as described in her book: "Long Diaries, Tall Tales" (d4daisy 2015).  I think that my home-made lino plates might be suitable for this.  However, domestic duties have recently made increased calls on my time and I have not yet managed to try it out.  I am looking forward to a couple of weeks when I will have more free time to explore this further.