Saturday, October 8, 2016

More silk imagery

A few more experiments in silk overlay imagery.  I'm using my drawings or stitching or other artworks, printing the image on silk and layering it.  This is the greatest fun.  It's very much like my early days of computer assisted art, waaaaay back in the 80s, when I overlaid images, drawing directly into the system, using my photographs, too, and paintings,  and made some interesting work.  

That was on a Rube Goldberg setup at the local community college, where they obligingly let me use the computer lab for many hours in addition to official class time.  

Two complete large old computers, linked together, with a stylus for drawing, and a keyboard for commands, and you had to learn the commands for the somewhat primitive program, though wonderful for its time.  

And if you wanted to make pix of your work, there being only one printer in the country at that time capable of such multicolored demanding images, and it was in California, well, as I say, you stuck your film cartridge into the intestines of the setup in order to film images, which you then got developed like normal pix. And each image filled an entire floppy disk.  Not called scanning then, called image grab.

Great adventure, and I thought I was really cutting edge!  It was certainly a workout for all parts of the brain, figuring out commands while drawing and collaging artworks and photography electronically.

I did get into some good places with that art, in real life and on the internet, so it was rewarded. Got my first corporate show from it, too, with computer assisted image prints and monotypes, extreme ends of the printmaking spectrum, from high tech to all handmade.

But back to the present, these silk printed images are  great to work with because you can change the permutations, use the same image printed out on separate silk gauze sheets to create different finished works, and just endlessly experiment.  And the great advantage over computer assist is that you physically handle them, so you use more than just visual perception.
 

Cicadas reaching for the stars!

Evening Primrose at the Canal

Goldwork oakleaf and acorns over orchids

Tree ink drawing over tree painting

Mallow leaning over canal stocked with trout, ink drawing over painting on canvas

Lichen over orchid watercolor painting

Flowers seen from the cicada's viewpoint, ink drawings layered

Most of these are two layers, and I'll use a smear of fabric glue to adhere them to one another and to the backing before I frame them. These are all 8x11 inches or thereabouts.  This is probably going to be the start of a solo exhibit somewhere.  But I'm in several group shows where I can give a couple of them a trial run.

Interesting to see that the depth of these images shows up in rl much more than on the screen.  Not a problem, since they'll be shown mostly in real life settings.  As always, all my work is for sale, just inquire within!

1 comment:

  1. this tchnique has worked so well youmust be so pleased. Readong about the computer you used in the 80`s my how things have changed since themn

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