Week 1: The found materials that I brought in for the first day was, Old maps, materials, children’s books and a french dictionary. I was very interested in the maps and the patterns that they created. The children’s books reminded me of the technique of painting that I used to do when I was younger with a marble rolling on paper. I also traced over one of the maps onto clear paper and scanned it to different sizes. I tried layering things on top of the french dictionary pages however I wasn’t really happy with how these works turned out and its not an idea that I want to progress. I also used primary coloured inks onto the materials, I experimented with what happens when you wet the fabric before dyeing it and making ghosts. I found that with the wet fabric the inks bleed through into the newspaper and it created a cool pattern that I liked. I really liked the idea of mapping and I would like to look more into topographic maps.
I have started to use the printer in my work. I have made lots of patterns onto clear paper and layered them on top of each other. I used the technique of continuing to photocopy images over and over again changing things slightly. I loved the patterns that came out of this technique.
An Artist that I have been looking at is Daniel Eatock, I really like the techniques that he uses in his work, placing paper over some pens and letting the paint bleed. I tried experimenting with this but I couldn’t find any pens that worked well enough to bleed through. I decided to take the dot shapes through into more of my work.
Shannon Rankin is another artist that I have been looking at as most of her work is based around topographic maps. I like the works she has with cutting out parts of maps and layering into a topographic map shape. I really like this layering idea, I have already used this with the clear painted sheets and i would like to continue with this idea.
As I was researching some artists I cam across Heike Weber. I was drawn to her work by the complex patters that reminded me of topographic maps, I thought that I could use these patterns in my work. I really like the colours that she uses in her works as she mainly uses black, red and blue. My idea is to make works with these patterns in different colours onto clear paper and layering them on top of each other to create an even more complex patterned work.
