Tease

So I scanned all my work from yesterday and, well, the scans didnt come out good so I have to rescan them. Something I had wrong in the settings. I dont have enough time to explain the emulsion on each one right now because Im exhausted from working all day but I wanted to give you a tease of what I found. Nothing detailed and will be edited tomorrow, I hope.

These images are lighter than the last because of my careful way of coating them this time. But I like the effect, the subtle color and reaction they have to the paper is so delicate its inviting. Check them out.

This is one is made of grapes on purple cauliflower I believe. I pressed the grapes onto the paper and exposed the juices.

This is a beet mixture and grapes pressed on top. The paper was not dried. 

This is rhubarb onto a fennel concoction but the faint lines are really beautiful.

This image is a composed part of a beet mixture and rhubarb and a leaf of rainbow swiss chard in the center. 

This is a paper test of Epson Water color paper. Beautiful. 

This is again another non dried paper and rhubarb, potato, corn strands, and onion on top of a beet mix. 

Corin Hewitt

Worth the watch.... His play with materials and space is fascinating. He speaks well about his work and has a great sense of humor. This is not the video I wanted to show but if you look him up there is an Artist Lecture he did at Wake Forest University that is worth the hour watch. Just to hear about his process and why its important for him to document it or invite people to see while he produces his work. Interesting man, enjoy!

End lab now its time to read.

What you see here is......

a test of leaves on an anthotype to see about exposing one as the leaves fall in my backyard and see what kind of exposure it yields. This is a way of me accepting the change of season for my work currently and seeing what nature at its "unexpected" or "expected" can do to these sort of prints. 

This is a coated piece of paper that is just set to expose with nothing on it. Why? Because when I was setting my images up I saw that a fly was roaming around and I thought, wouldnt that be neat to see what the insects that are checking out the work can do on a wet surface. Not that I will get anything but its worth a shot, just another way for me to connect nature into itself. 

Here is array of images I have set up. They all have a number and belong to one of the concoctions I have made earlier. I have really tried to brush on the emulsion as smooth as I possibly could. These all came out really even and I was excited about that. I used remains from the rest of the veggies and fruits to expose for these images here. I am also trying to pay more attention to the composition.


These are some close ups of undried and coated paper with matter on them. These fruits and veggies have already started to absorb and release themselves onto the paper which is currently what I am fascinated with.


In this image below there is two small prints of new paper that was donated to me. We shall see what they yield and again they were set to expose while wet because I am really attracted to their reaction under those circumstances.

The leaves you see below are another test of some old watercolor paper that I used in college. Again coated and then matter was placed ontop. You can see how the grapes when I squished them what kind of reaction I get....this is really interesting to me because its all "natural". There are not chemicals involved it is simply a recording of one life onto another in two different forms.


These exposures should be done by the end of the day so tomorrow we shall wee what we get and I will post the results. I will also be coating some more paper like said, to keep dry and downstairs in preparation for an alternate weather pattern tomorrow. In the meantime I have completely re-organized my house again because I have a hard time working when something is not in its place. I feel like I am in a good place and most definitely will be after this weekend. Should be able to focus solely on my work this coming week to really get back into it after school and all.

I will also be experimenting with putting leaves into the enlarger as well. I have also set up my studio space downstairs for a possible photo shoot of my materials and color of my mixes that I have been using, just like what Caleb and I discussed being about to document my process a little more. I will also be outside in my garden maybe Tuesday taking pictures of flowers and veggies that I produced this year. This film will be in color and will need to be sent out.

Thats it for now!

Can't get enough veggies!

Ok so I have created my own emulsions based on my experimentations. And I have nine to try out and see what I get. I have set up a handful or leaf exposures outside and will be putting together a test for the fallen leaves when my papers dry. I should have some dry paper for tomorrow's expected rain and should be an experiment to walk out and expose and walk back in. Ill be coating some papers and using the remaining vegetables and fruits to expose the anthotypes. The corn really intrigued me. I'm also putting together one emulsion that is steeping flower pedals in distilled water to try and get their color.

 

New Way of Working

Alright! Pure success!!! I have achieved Epson Scan on my computer officially and so I am not all set to work in a professional way than the scans I have done previously for the blog. I now have all the options needed.

So a lot has happen.....or should I say is about to. I met with Caleb Charland on Tuesday and we had a wonderful discussion. I was told to scan in negative, which I never thought of, and here are some examples.

These were all scanned as a negative. All my previous work with the leaves were scanned as a document.

This is a "back" scan with RGB color and adjusted and inverted

I wanted to show these because I really liked the color and x-ray of the leaf

This is from the "back" of the leaf..... in RGB color and adjusted. 

This is the "back" as well and in CMYK color and adjusted

This is the "back" in grayscale. 

invert and grayscale

Here is a scan positive film and I was going to get the same kind of reaction to the scan so I selected an area inside the leaf....

Im getting a much better scan and I am very excited to utilize this equipment I have. In my discussion with Caleb too we talked about all these being a process and really going into documenting my process of "photographing" or image making as you will. We talked about making a video, taking pictures of my garden and flowers, snapping myself as I go out to get some rain or sunlight on paper and come back inside and that becoming more a part of the process as a whole. 

My goals for this week:

-make more images of veggies on their leaves and scan them

-make my own emulsion cocktail. 

-try the purple potatoes, purple cauliflower, and bringing flowers into my mixture to get more warm colors

-scan leaves currently have as negative

-read articles that Caleb gave me

-research my three artists and email them after my discussion with Caleb and Alison my list has become longer and may change the people I was first interested in. 

-start my paper for next Monday due date

- get books from library that Alison and I discussed. 

-take advantage of the sun as much as possible. 

-test an anthotype with the leaves on it. 

- coat a TON of paper to be ready to make prints anytime. 

Soooo A lot is going on this week. I have a meeting with my mentor on Tuesday September 10th and then there is an opening on Wednesday 11th at NHIA and Thursday 12th at Panopticon which I will attempt to attend both. The new school year has started and I am getting adjusted to my old schedule and routine. I expect next Saturday to be my next lab day and it will be good to see where my discussions go this week to help guide that lab day. Here are some photographs from my camping trip.

Vacation

Ill be away for the weekend on a camping trip to Baxter State Park in Maine. Very excited! I will not be bake to produce anything new but may have one post later tonight if my exposures are working properly. Then school starts and ill be handling the students so it may be a little before I post again.........

These are the two anthotypes that i exposed earlier yesterday. These were two sheets of beet emulsion with vegetables that were wet and weathered from outside on the paper to exposed. The paper was not dried before set for exposure. This is what gives it more texture. Next week I am going to attempt to create my own emulsion by mixing beets with berries and other vegetables to get a color and texture that is most desirable for me and really narrow down which paper I enjoyed working with the most. I will then set out exposures that will follow this same idea of "wet" exposures. Should be interesting.

Check these images out:

Paper Tests

Ok so I showed you some images this morning of dipping sheets of paper into a beet emulsion and I was testing not having them dry before printing on them. With a slightly overcast day  and about six hours exposure I received these images. Try to capture the texture in them, its really interesting.

Four sheets of paper were dipped, these papers were only dipped once and then a slice of an old potato was laid on them like the picture you saw in this mornings post.

So here we have....

Epson Enhanced Matte

Epson DuraBrite Glossy Photo Paper

Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper

Ilford Galerie Multipurpose Paper

Important to note that these images were not adjusted at all. These are their true colors. It will be interesting to see the difference between the double dipped papers and the ones that are dried and I will expose tomorrow. I will assume they will most likely need more time because the material will not be wet and absorbing the emulsion quicker. 

Results

Look at these.

So I was playing with the levels and curves to emphasize the detail, textures and colors in each Anthotype that is present just not as saturated. Even though I say that they have been "altered" I don't know think that holds completely true. The colors and textures that are on these images are amazing....digitally or not.
here are some examples:
This is a beet emulsion that had a deteriorating kale bunch on top of it and went through a rain storm which made the emulsion pool at the bottom...interesting...

This is a beet emulsion with an onion slice at the top and cucumbers in the middle with c kohlrabi slice at the bottom. Very rice colors. 

This is a red cabbage emulsion with slices of red cabbage on top. The cabbage definitely absorbed some of the emulsion and was left overnight for about two nights and days and this reaction was made in the color. Its absolutely beautiful!

This is a red cabbage with onion strings, egg shells and some leaves on it. 

This is a swiss chard leaf on a swiss chard emulsion and the red stem of the leaf left a mark while exposing which is really intriguing. 

A swiss shard leaf on a fennel emulsion.......

Some weeds on a wine emulsion...

This is a wine emulsion with a house plant leaf on it....both of them are the same. 

Then I started playing with other ideas like coating a paper with grapes and then pressing other berries onto the paper to see what that gave me.... This is what I got. You can see where the blueberries dried up and fell off and some of them stuck with their own juices. This has been out to dry for days and it still is sticky and has juices all over it so I had to scan this on a piece of glass on the flatbed. The juices obviously ran and I think I will do another scan and take the fruit remaining off and see what is underneath. 

This is a red cabbage emulsion with about half a red cabbage left to expose on the paper. This is a dense piece. The colors are amazing and there is little to no correction or saturation here in this image. This is really amazing. I love what happened here. The cabbage absorbed the emulsion through getting wet during condensation process and being left overnight a couple times. Its fascinating that some of the details were able to penetrate through the large bulk of the vegetables onto the paper. I am interested in this.....and the thought of just allowing the produce to "die" on itself and leave a trace is really inviting to me in this process as well. 

I tried the last cucumber print and what it gave me was amazing but I wanted to see if I could keep the leaf flat and so I put the leaf under glass here and then the cucumbers on the glass. There were three in a triangle and you can see their marks where the darker green it. Didnt do what I was hoping but it was still good to try. 

This is three kale leaves that I exposed their own roots on. This was difficult because I couldn't get the roots to lay flat on the leaves. There was too thin roots not directly in contact with the leaf and the sun would just wrap around them. I will try this process again though. You can see in the leaves that the bottom where they all connect there is a darker section and that is where the "stump" of the root rested, The rest of them didn't really keep a trace of the root just exposed a little differently and this is the final product. It is definitely a process to try again and play with it. While doing this I grew a connection with the roots themselves. So I decided to scan them as well. Again its hard to scan something that has so much bulk to it but this is the image I made of it. I am curious now if there may be a connection forming here between the digital world of this work and the life and death of this work. Is there a thought of creating a diptych.... Im not sure.  

Exposing and Scanning

ALright so I have had these vegetables outside for some times now and there is some wear to them.....They are starting to deteriorate naturally and be eating by insects. I liked this. I was interested in coating the paper and exposing it before it was dry like I have previously stated and so I did. Both sheets of paper with coated with a brush and then placed right outside, still wet, and these vegetables and leaves placed on top. What I am trying to get are the marks that these materials will make when they absorb the emulsion into themselves. I was surprised to see the change in the red cabbage when I exposed it and how the mass of half a cabbage took to the paper after going through some weather changes. The colors were extraordinary. This is what I am trying to achieve here, like said in an earlier post, it might just be about color right now too and how do I play and get results that are intriguing. You can see in these images that they are already absorbing the emulsions so we should see what we get!

This bottom image is a set of four different papers that are digital papers that were dipped into a beet emulsion. I again curious on how the material absorbs the emulsion when it is not dry before exposing. This is a potato that had passed its time and I started to think about the waste of the fruits and veggies that some people may have....or even that I have. How much do I throw out or allow to waste/rot in my fridge because I didnt find the time to prepare them or eat them? This idea also coincides with life and death as well. Like rotten milk? How does curdled cream look on a surface such as this and how will it react to  the materials? So Im think I may play with this idea slightly..... See what comes of it. I also have two other sets of these sheets of paper, one is going to be double dipped and the other once and both dried before exposing. I will post later because I spent all morning scanning about ten anthotypes I produced the other day and am SUPER excited to bring them into the good old Photoshop and see what comes of them. Stay tuned. 

Ideas....thoughts

So I have had a great day! Got into my classroom and prepared for school to start again which will be interesting to see how I can balance life, art, and teaching. Ill think about that more in two weeks. :)

I met with Bev Conway who was a great inspiration to me today. Her recent work is using a process that I admire and am currently in the process of gaining a greater understanding for it as well. Things that came up in out couple hour conversation with her:

Maybe it is about color?
What about the reactions that two materials make while exposing?
Is it about the mark making?
What am I trying to make?
Maybe I do need to work in a mixed media.....
What is important to me?
It is ok that its not an emulsion made of the material being photographed.
Im in a good place.... i think.... :)

Our conversation was strong and long lasting and if I had not had prior plans then it probably would of gone on for some more time. It will happen again Im sure. One thing that stuck with me about this meeting was maturity. This is true and this is why I am here. Events in life have brought me to this place and my maturity has pushed me here to pursue this crazy idea called art.

Things I am going to try:

immersing the paper in the emulsion of choice
composing an image using flowers from my garden
keeping it simple and studying mark making.
embracing the digital side of this process more and being a little more open to scanning my images and looking at them in photoshop.
placing veggies onto emulsion even when its not dry and exposing
coating digital papers to see what kind yields a strong color.
Moving away from the consistent use of the leaves on paper but what do objects do? what if i used something that was completely opposite and not as delicate as a leaf?
When using vegetation can I just throw it and let it fall on the paper? Is composing it going to be too contrived?

Found these artists today, check them out here:

http://www.alchemy-studio.net

James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith

Had some really great things happen today in my exposures and can not wait to let them dry and scan them tomorrow. I will post pictures for sure.