The London Underground

Another short series of miniature hand-built collages. The London Underground... or 'The Ticket Collection'. The collages aim to explore the notion of perceived, but unintentional narratives. A short sketchbook exercise.

Digital Collage - Swiss graphics influences

Currently working on a series of digital collages of 'cityscapes',  based on Bristol, Bath and London. These explore composition, juxtaposition and colour palettes suggested by Swiss graphics styles of the 1950's. The main battle here was dealing with the inconsistencies of digital print. Getting screen, stock and printer profiles set in order to print what is seen on screen is a nightmare! The images you see here are somewhat lighter that I would prefer on screen.... but, printed out correctly. I know... I should have duplicated files and adjusted a set for screen too! The set here based on Bristol... more to follow. All prints are A3

Thanks for further responses - Recession

My thanks to Kareem Rizk for his recent response to the end of year project. Kareem managed to fit this in around his move to Europe - so my appreciation to him for the effort and interest in my work. His submitted piece - 'Tall tales' - below. Check out Kareem's work at: http://www.kareemrizk.com/

Thanks also to Rob Kettell for his response to and interest in the project and my on-going work. I am hoping that Rob might also provide a foreword to the printed piece for the show. His submission below based on a quote by WH Auden.

More work for the show - Recession etc.

Thanks to Caroline Tomlinson for the great piece of work above for the course end of year show piece. My apologies to Caroline for the confusion of unanswered email conversations recently... got there in the end!
It's nice  to see that Caroline has this piece of work on her site - http://carolinetomlinson.com/ - crediting the collaboration for the MA show in June.

'Recession- it doesn't have to be like this' - 2

An additional piece of work received yesterday from Angelica Paez. Many thanks to Angelica not only for the work, but also for her interest in my work and the links to my sites that she has made. This has already increased visitors to my blog and Flickr sites prompting others' to comment on my work. Really appreciated.

Angelica Paez - 'Sock Market'
scrapatorium.typepad.com

Check out lots of great collage on Angelicas site!

More work to come as it arrives

'Recession- it doesn't have to be like this'

Posted below are some of the responses I have have started to received from selected artists as discussed in the previous post. My thanks to all involved; I really appreciate the time taken to produce the visual response for the project and the comments that you have sent me about my own work in this blog and on my Flickr site(link below). I will gradually be adding links to your sites from this blog.

Marion Deuchars - untitled
http://mariondeuchars.com

Alexei Vella - 'Future Sight'

http://www.alexeivella.com

Valero Doval - untitled

www.valerodoval.com/

More to Follow!

Preparation for end of year show - inspirational practitioners

Recently I emailed a small group of practitioners who have inspired and informed my work during my MA study. Each artist was sent the flyer below and given a personal invite to respond to the brief for my MA year group end of year show publication. I've been really pleased with the responses received and promises of work for the deadline. The work has now started to roll in and I will soon begin to post the responses with credits to the artist. My thanks to all those that have agreed to take part... and to those that have not yet replied, it's not too late!

208 Posters - radio Luxembourg/Horace batchelor

This poster set continues to develop as  a digital set. After experimenting with relief printing from laser cut blocks (previous post), which was relatively successful I am now re-focussing on production of this set digitally. I have been experimenting with digital output and am currently printing onto low quality newsprint paper to review how quickly this stock will age to add an additional aesthetic to the printed work. The idea being to access design styles from a previous era and replicate the ageing process to assess how this might affect any perceived aesthetic. The aim is 'historicism' rather than nostalgia.

Update of current work

I have now posted below scans of current collage work 'Film Set'; scanner working again now! This set not yet complete and considers perceived narrative, what's there, what isnt. Further posts soon.

Collage and unintentional narrative

Some further collage in the current series. Same rules, only elements form the recently acquired books and a few random bits of aged ephemera fro my desktop. Some more successful than others in terms of: composition, balance, juxtaposition of elements and unintentional but possibly perceived narratives. What is frustrating is the fact that there is so much china clay in the paper that the images are taken from that it blunts scalpel blades really quickly!

Inspiration for this work comes largely from the work of David Wallace whose collages provided me with a starting point for my research into collage and mixed media a couple of years ago. Check out his work at salaczar.com. There's some great collages and graphic art/paintings there.

Quality of images below may not be wonderful as I recorded them on my mobile phone as my scanner is currently u.s.

'Conditions'

'Issue'

'Places'

'published'

'signature'

'Chapter'

Print:from digital to laser cut relief blocks

Currently experimenting with laser cut relief blocks from one of the '208 Horace Batchelor' series of prints to further consider the visual aesthetic created by the printing process itself. The blocks shown here are a scaled down test piece which I intend to print over the next couple of days. (Images show the laser cut and the constructed print block). I will then evaluate the outcomes in terms of print quality and visual aesthetic to decide whether to pursue this further with full-size prints. Additionally, I need to come to some conclusion as to whether I print the halftone in these designs from laser-cut raster images or bring digital or screen-printed over prints into play. That decision is on hold until I evaluate the block printing of the relief colours. The blocks are cut from mount card with the printing faces then glued with PVA to a background support block.

Red block

Blue block

Yellow block

Image that blocks will finally print

More Collage from aged ephemera

Whilst I am currently preparing artwork to cut relief printing blocks on the laser cutter to experiment with processes for my Radio Luxembourg 208 prints I am carrying on with collage. From some books acquired before the christmas break I have continued to explore aged ephemera, consideration for juxtaposition and space and random, unplanned narrative that might be perceived from any inclusion of typographic elements. Once again, there are rules; only images, text and graphic elements from a small set of books/ephemera allowed in an attempt to keep things simple and let juxtapositions do the work!

House Fly

Imaginary

Looks on