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9 of the 12 Dancing Ariana’s!

Also known as “the gang,” I’ve spent approximately a month and a half manipulating and assembling these photolithographs into movable puppets! Using monoprinting techniques, I’ve laid color flats on top of the black and white prints, and then laid blind embossment on top of the darker parts for added texture. More detail shots on the embossment to come! 

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Just a couple of jiving puppet pals! Two more of the gang of 12 just dancing up a storm! (Thanks to Alex Pears for lending a hand!)

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Dancing Male Arianas!

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A few more blotted prints from my puppet-making process! I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with the built-up ink on the puppet parts and arranging, layering, and composing the pieces to create these deconstructed images. 

Most prints are on kitakata or kozo paper!

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I took a turn towards the comic artist inside, and chose to do some simple line work on my final stone! I plan to do some mono-printing on top of this image, or perhaps to color the image with gouache, watercolor, or colored pencil. It’s all still in the works, but I hope to mimic some of the qualities I achieved in an earlier comic series I completed last year! 

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My final editioned print for my second stone.

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My final printed edition of my first stone! 

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Just a few chine-colle prints made for my final critique in Lithography this week! The end images are kitakata on Rives BFK, and the imagery consists of blotted ink compositions from my puppets (gifs and images to come!) The middle image is a combination of my first and second stone print in the course. 

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A day in the studio: Dancing Arianas by Ariana Wescott photo lithographs on Arches 88 cut and assembled

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A day in the studio: Ariana Wescott photo lithographs on Arches 88 cut and assembled and used for Dancing Arianas 

upper image is a blotting proof on Kitakata Kozo used for removing access ink from the back of the photo-lithographic cut-outs 

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Here are a few shots of some newsprint and Kozo compositions pulled while printing the flats for my doll parts! It’s been a crazy, fun, highly experimental process of color, cuts, and brads.

While printing on Friday, my professor and I worked on mylar, and printed on an etching press. We printed colored flats for the front of the images, and a flat, matte black on the back. 

We also experimented with two-color rolls on the remaining images for my second stone print, which I will post soon! The red, yellow, and green doll was a result of the two-hour process Friday morning. The blue, purple, and orange doll was a product of my own later experiments, and will be put together Monday, possibly using different fastening tactics. I might look into smaller brads, or perhaps sewing the pieces together, although I still want flexibility and movability for both storage and play purposes. 

The orange and black Kozo print will be glued onto a nicer sheet of paper via chine-collé on Monday during our work session. 

I’m hoping to finish printing these colored dolls, and then move on to bigger moving parts! 

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We’ve moved forward to photolithography, and its been a nutty process. 

My plate was printed and conditioned gracefully enough, but the printing process was tricky. I managed to pull about four prints on Arches 88, which came out okay. My intention, as per an earlier post, is to make these printed pieces into cut-out paper dolls. After a long work session Friday, they’ve begun to come to life (and in color)!

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A quick update on my second stone prints!

The scraper bar left a nice line straight through the image, so this stone will have to be reprinted. However, I cut up most of the edition for chine-collé that is being pasted on top of my first stone edition! 

Many works in progress!

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For my upcoming photolithography project, I decided to delve into my interests in puppetry using print! Over the summer I created a magazine paper puppet (pictured at the bottom) in the fashion of Wangechi Mutu’s watercolor and magazine collages (this was for a children’s summer camp I was helping to instruct as an intern along with another coworker.) A few of Mutu’s pieces are featured in the middle (courtesy of http://wangechimutu.com/).

I’m particularly drawn to the oddness of the forms that Mutu creates by cutting and pasting together unrelated parts. Half humorous, half unnerving. I wanted to re-create my paper puppet project using print. I plan to make the top three black and white puppets I’ve collaged together into moving puppets using brads and a hole punch. I will aim to deconstruct the parts as I did in the second row of images and collage many parts together into a cohesive whole on paper that I will then print, cut, and form! I plan to make more than three puppets, but this is just my experimental starting point! 

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Second stone, gummed and waiting to be etched for the first time on Sunday! I should be up and printing this image (hopefully) by this week. Super enormous stone to come once I figure out exactly what I want to do with it!

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A little update on stone number two! I'm hoping to get this bad boy gummed and happy before spring break so I can start etching when I get back to school!

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On your marks, get set, calendar! In light of my unfortunate stint with acid burn, I've turned to a bit of color printing to help fill in the darker areas. I've printed an edition of 6, and will be layering them with a black layer tomorrow morning! Here's to an edition finished before spring break!