Studio Day Reflection

After getting some old photos I have previously worked with enlarged and printed at the print shop on campus, I worked onto them using mixed media to obscure parts of the face. Initially, my reason for doing this was to see what the images I had chosen would look like if I took out different parts of the face. However I think it turned into something bigger and more conceptual once I got into experimenting with the placement of the black circles. The act of masking the face out a physical barrier between the audience and the subject (Lizzie) in the photo, suggesting how people can look at each other as strangers, friends, family, and not always be able to see the whole person in terms of identity, personality, memories and experiences. It is also an interesting choice to have the face partially obscured as it adds depth to the image, making it appear less 2D, and transforms it into more meaningful work rather than just a print in black and white.

Below are my initial experiments with geometric shape overlayed onto the prints.

I think that my choice to use basic geometric shapes as a mask/obstruction was reflective of how simple and basic the idea of someone’s headspace is. It is the place that contains their memories and personal characteristics to create their identity, which is such a huge part of someone’s everyday life. Therefore if this is misjudged or received incorrectly, it can have a huge impact on how that person interacts with other people or goes about their daily wanderings.

After creating these test pieces using the cut out black card circles, i decided to broaden the experimentation onto other geometric shapes, to produce these works:

I particularly like the middle response with the circle covering the face, as it is a very strong obstruction that looks forecbly placed onto the photo.

After reflecting on these images, I decided to see how I could further add depth to their composition. My immediate though was to add more black shapes, however I realised after some short experimentation that this would only produce a more one dimensional piece as the more shape is added, the more the print would be obscured and therefore more layered black detracts from the photo. So instead I decided to work with a very light pastel pallete to paint the three geometric shapes over the top of the prints. I decided to combine different shapes with eachother which was effective, and the use of the pastel colours work well with the geometric shapes, reflecting my choice of an almost ‘childish’ aesthetic.

I used masking tape over the prints to mark out where I wanted the shapes to be painted onto, and almost ended up not painting the colours on as I really liked the combination of the masking tape and black geometric shapes. I think is due to the ‘scruffy’ kind of look that the masking tape created, changing the look and feel of each modified photo completely:

After adding, the masking tape I added the paint. This required experimenting a lot with shades of the pastel colours and combining different acrylic paint colours to create various palletes. I swatched the colours in my sketchbook on a page with successfully allowed me to choice the best colours to combine together for the prints.

I am really pleased with the final outcome of the prints, as when I removed the masking tape the shapes I had painted on where extremely precise and clean cut which gave a strong finished effect.

I did however encounter a few problems along the way, such as the masking tape becoming too stuck to the page and ripping off small pieces of black and white colour from the print which does slightly detract from the very strict and precise feel of each piece, however in the future I will try to use an alternative method to produce the clean shapes. I did use this to my advantage slightly, and considered doing it more over each print so that the effect was eggagerated however thought in the end that I wouldn’t like the ripped paper covering the photo. I also need to consider ways to get around the paper crinkling where I painted onto it, as in some cases I painted a few different layers of the paint onto the shape, meaning that the paper morphed out of its strict form.