Two of Three

So this is the last one I started for the series, this time using color with black and white throughout the entire process. I guess I don't particularly care for colors, and I had a lot of trouble integrating it into the composition in a way that didn't feel so heavy-handed. The part at the top is where the woodblock didn't manage to cover the entire paper, but I thought it was nice so I kept it. For the part where the woodgrain meets the drawn elements I wanted to make the depth ambiguous, but because I used the same ghetto registration technique it ended up being a bit off and now it just looks like something peeling up.

I like the first two much more than this one, because for this I felt a bit too desperate to add new elements that I really misused what I already had. It feels like a really stupid collage rather than the drawing I envisioned, so I took half a step forward and ten steps back, really.

One of Three

This is one of a series of drawings I did at the end of last semester. It's a combination of drawn elements as well as printed woodblock and monoprint. Originally I just started by "collaging" photographic elements by drawing them into configurations on the page, but that plays into my weaknesses and usually makes stale work. I'm rather controlling with mediums like drawing, to the level that I lose interest in the drawing itself because of its predictability.

Therefore I started adding monoprinted elements as well as starting the drawing in a different orientation than I intended to finish it, both as means of introducing unexpected results. For the wood grain I cut a mylar stencil to fit the drawing, stuck it to a plank of plywood using water, inked up the exposed wood with sumi ink, and ran it through the press. It's a terrible way of registering a print but I intended it to be that way so that there would always be a chance I'd destroy the drawing. I don't mean to reference the process of nearly destroying the drawing, it's just a way of separating myself from it. I then did a watercolor monoprint with the blue, but the introduction of color was rather unsuccessful, so I drew an image around it, making it into "waves". It's the first drawing I started for this set and the last one I finished, as I had to do alot of tweaking to blend the different elements together.

Oh yeah, the drawing was done using water-soluble graphite, so that I can run water over a portion drawn with pencil and it would completely erase the texture of the paper. It gives it a more organic look than pencil drawing but also gives a lot more control than watercolor washes.