Self initiated personal piece. Last portrait of my wife @kanaemuraki, for a while. Really pleased with the final outcome. Tried to convey a few of her experiences from this year, along with a range of objects and themes relating to her interests and career. I purposely gave this a Nouveau element, to channel a bit of the great Harry Clarke. www.meroedraws.com #selfinitiated #illustration #penandink #inkonpaper #freehand #cyberpunk #artnouveau #harryclarke #sf #girlsleeping #blackandwhite (at Camberwell) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWjXa8RsX9b/?utm_medium=tumblr
Exhibition for Empathy was a very important event in the month of February/March, the year of 2020. This year was welcomed with many sad news, one of them including devastating fires in Australia. I am an advocate for animal rights and my love for them is infinite. I had to do something to help , even if I am on the other side of the planet. Me and other three students went from a simple chat to a fully developed PROJECT. Therefore, we contacted many different people or companies and CARN CELF and Galeri Caernarfon were the people who were right for us and were ready to help. They helped us find a place and we have managed to fill it with local art, baked goods, music and lights. It was a three day long pop-up exhibition in Caernarfon, Wales, by Doc Victoria.
I will truly admit that this was one of the most difficult, challenging events. Mainly due to the fact that we are simply students and there really is so much we can do. So much we did was raise £360 and manage to raise awareness as well as some well-deserved publicity for the artists. It has taught me a lot about working non-profit and local- not easy, but possible. It has taught me that art can bring peace and kindness to this world.
I created a series of oil painting as well as 3 painted plant pots to represent what The Environment means to me. Humanity is in the middle as we are the solution but also the cause of all destruction. The pastel colours suggest the peace, but there are little hints of the fires and devastation. I painted the species of animals who are less recognised (Koalas and kangaroos got the most attention in the media), although they all suffered at the hand of humanity. I intend to make art to raise awareness for important causes that will somehow help innocent creatures.
After the toned prints dried I flattened them in a hot press and following guidance for Alan, my technician, I started to spot them.
I was quite fearful of making a bad job but I actually found the process really engaging. The dry area in the fine art department was ideal for this quiet task and I quickly realised that it wasn't that scary.
I found the grey areas and white the easiest to match tonally, with black areas needing a more careful approach. The prints are far better and way more presentable after this exercise. I spent about 5 hours spotting and covered 6 prints. Some needed only a couple of licks of the ink, whereas others took more careful spit healing
I'm really enjoying all the steps of creating fine art prints. They are all very challenging but also quite rewarding. I'd like that I could make a living, at least for some time or some amount of my weeks (e.g. part-time job) working with analogue photography. A dream job.
Today I decided to tone two sets of my 16 x 20 prints. I planned to do it later in the process but I planned to learn and practice spotting - a sort of painting technique used to clean final prints of dust specs and either fluff that wasn't picked up from the negative before printing.
Toning is a process of allowing the archival properties of the analogue prints to strengthen multiple times. It is a common process and sometimes results in prints getting coloured. For example, Thomas Joshua Cooper's work gets toned in selenium and gold resulting in split toning and purple/gold tint. Beautiful! (If only I could afford gold toner, perhaps one day :))
Selenium toner is a hazardous chemical and therefore I was wearing safety gear on. It doesn't show on the pictures, but I also had thick rubber safety gloves on top of the blue ones.
Toning requires pre-fixing and extensive wash prior to starting the process. Once done, the prints reside in a wash near the toner. Sometimes this allows a comparison of results if one has the same print in the wash and in the toner.
Toning occurs visually, e.g. one needs to keep inspecting and comparing results to an untoned print. Over time, I believe, one can gather enough experience to know in advance what time would suit their print. I must admit, I wasn't sure of the differences in the visual aesthetics so I went for 3 minutes toning. I based that on the results of a couple of first few toned prints but it was an estimated guess.
So I played a bit with the information that I’d see fit to be included on the back of my prints. I don’t have a logo so I thought that my name could stand out. I’d include the title of the work below my name and so I thought it might look good with my name and the title in one box. This would suggest the hierarchy of the information. I also thought that the box could go through my name that contains few A’s and the Z that originally has got a dash above it. I wondered if I’d add this Polish sign in my name. I think that wouldn’t make a difference, could confuse things and be awkward in printing outside of Poland as it’s a special character. I am concerned a bit that, although visually and conceptually it makes sense, the box scoring my name could be confusing and considered a mistake to others than me.
I, therefore, think that the two designs on the right-hand side are best. I’ll print them and fill them in for a print and put on the back of the darkroom prints that I already have, to try for size and visual impact.
The only thing I’m unsure of is the inclusion or exclusion of any contact details. The address and telephone number can be the same till the rest of my days but hopefully will change. The website address is also something that may differ in years to come, especially that my Squarespace subscription will expire in October this year. I’m not sure if my website name of nenart.net does the trick for my current of future photography life. I think I could think of a better name, or even using my own.
The guidelines for signing a giclee print are much simpler then the traditional hand-pulled print. Here are guidelines to follow when signing for both!
In today’s episode we’ll talk about my process for Signing Fine Art Photography, creating Certificates of Authenticity and how I track my images. You can dow...
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I also looked at this vide of a surfer dude explaining more of a marketing approach to finalising/signing his artwork and it reminded me of the need to order business cards! I’ll add this to my TO DO list.
