Bet you thought I'd abandoned the project! It has been a long time coming, but here we have the next two instalments from the series, July and August. The reason for the delay is that I have been pushing the medium until it screams and begs for mercy which has led to a fair bit of failure. These two don't push the envelope in terms of carving but they do in terms of printing and the way I'm using paper.
The first one, July, involves four processes which range from princess-and-the-pea delicacy to barely controlled violence. The key to the process is changing the texture of the paper part of the way through printing. Finding a paper that did everything I wanted took 6 weeks and is the main reason for the delay.
The second one goes to the other extreme. When I was picking out the paper and I asked whether I'd get away with it for block printing, the look on the man from Atlantis' face was a picture. Why? I hear you ask. Well, the thickness of paper is measured in terms of weight. For context, watercolour paper typically ranges from 160-600 grams per square metre. Typical drawing paper will range from 100-200 gsm. Photocopy paper might be 80 gsm. Tissue paper is often around 20 gsm. The paper I have used is 9 gsm. It's a Japanese hemp based tissue and if you breathe heavily it floats away. The reason I wanted it was its transparency and smoothness. In this edition I have printed the green canopy, mucking about with the inks to give a hint of texture. I have then mounted it so it floats above a dark brown backing to give the rest of the colour. Perhaps it is a little too eerie for August, but it has so much atmosphere I didn't want to change it.
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