New lights!

Today I bought a new light set...strips of LED lights that change colour. So much neater than the lights I was using before...AND they have a lovely control which could enable people in an exhibition to control the lighting themselves. Could be interesting.

but do they work as well with print? The colours appear much brighter, and there is more white light.
Plus they don't flash as quickly, so am unsure about which set to use now.



VIDEO HERE

Tape Attack II

Southbank Centre, London.

Tape attack..

Quick and fun way of testing designs on large surfaces: use tape! I love doing this, you can put a design anywhere without worrying about it not quite working. If it doesn't look right, it just peels straight off again!

 On to a mirrored floor...

Southbank Centre, London. 

Using reflective tape. Looks very cool from far away, especially at night. But then everything started peeling off as quickly as we could get it on! Next time...gaffa tape...

Design for screenprinted wallpaper

Based on some drawings I did a while back, which combined cityscapes with optical illusions. 

I then developed the images in Adobe Illustrator. Before screen printing, I shall work back into them with hand drawings to avoid it appearing like a computer print out! 

The colours here are hideous, but can obviously be changed when printing.  Currently working on different colour-ways using a fantastic book. To be uploaded shortly.

The pattern is designed to be printed in 3 colours, each translucent, so that there are a range of mid-tones and depths of colour.  

Games/boat/projection/experience

Went to an event on a boat run by The Wild Rumpus. Essentially, it was an amazing old boat full of huddles of people playing crazy techno video games. Fantastic.

And there was a live set by Chipzel, who has recently done music for a game called Super Hexagon.

Super Hexagon was projected as a backdrop to her set. The projection of it was super-cool. I had never considered looking at games for inspiration before now, but this definitely is.

Graphic shapes, amazing colours and optical illusions...and the game is even harder to play than it is to watch!

Light & Space

As promised below, a short clip demonstrating the way that lighting and print can change an entire space....

Ideasideasideas

So, designing wallpaper is all very well, but my aim has always been to create something a bit...more. 

A bit more interesting, a bit more immersive and a bit more experiential. 

Using wallpapered surfaces at a large scale and using coloured lighting to change the appearance of the pattern.

These are digital images; just an example of how an exhibtion space would appear.

There will be a video shortly to show this further. I'm excited!

Videos of Work

So I've been recording all of my experiments with lighting and print-making as mini-films,  some of which I have already posted on here.

Heres a link to my youtube channel.

One day I will learn to use a real film camera and record these things properly/ hire somebody else to do it.

But the gist is there: I'm continuing to play with lighting with different printed patterns to use for a proposal for an installation piece.

SketchUp Playtime

So I recently installed Google SketchUp. Its a free 3-d modelling software, used lots by theatre designers, architects etc.

With the idea of using print, lighting and transparency to create an installation, I've been playing around in Sketchup to come up with ideas for spaces and see how my designs would appear.

These demonstrate the idea of using a space that enables veiwers to walk through and around. 

Using dividers and transparent panels to create an interesting experience,

I love the idea of using print to cover an entire area, including ceilings and floors to create an intense and unnerving sensation.

Print:Project

I have a little bit of an obsession with projection, and continuing on from previous projects where I have used projection to create a surface pattern, I thought I would see what I could do with a projector and some of my designs.

The following videos are of a couple of different digital designs, which have been projected (and then reflected using acetate) onto a white wall. So much fun and totally unpredictable results. 

Love how this video is of a rather graphic design, can become so ethereal. Reminds of water, petals and  slightly of some rather suggestive Georgia O'keefe works. How strange.

print:project

print:project II

print:project III

Interesting projection projects

Looking into the ways that different artists use projection, used very widely in performance art and music production. 

Nosaj Thing; Eclipse Blue. Electronic musician/producer. The video combines projection with moving figures to create a very trippy optical illusion. Are the figures even there???

Love the way projection can create the most surreal of optical illusions...

Miwa Matrayek's glorious visions: Use of multiple projections, one from the front and one behind, with the artist behind a screen interacting with the animation. 

And finally....Amon Tobin live show involves incredible amounts of projection mapping. He uses a fantastic set made up of very architectural looking cube forms, which I found really inspiring. I can imagine it being mind-boggling live...

Projection time!

Here are some stills from experimenting with projecting prints.  

Above & below: prints using the 3-d graph paper idea, projected and reflected. 

 

Hand drawn print-designs using building motifs.

Ultra-violet transparency

Got my hands on some fluorescent ink. Looks white under normal light, almost invisible. Fantastic stuff!
Heres another tiny video showing the UV ink printed onto plastic...

Have been thinking about the idea of playing with layers of transparent materials, whilst still using images inspired by brutalist architecture, and prints that change with the lighting.

Would love to create some kind of installation using this idea...

Special Effects Screen Printing??

In using lighting within my show to change the appearance of printed surfaces,  I'm having dilemmas about what inks to print with!

There seems to be very little in the way of inks that will both adhere to plastic/glass surfaces and come in a range of fluorescent, glow in the dark, and reflective colours.

So I will probably need to use a pigment/paint that can be mixed with a medium specifically designed for printing onto non-porous surfaces.

Paints/pigments:

Firstly, glow in the dark pigments. I have bought some glow in the dark pigment powder from Kilabitzzz. Glows very brightly, even glows very brightly in the pot when mixed with System3 Acrylic printing medium....it just doesn't glow when printed!  I don't know if this is because the particles don't print through the screen easily, or whether it only glows when its in bulk. I suspect the latter.



Fluorescent (ultra-violet) inks. by Glowtech, which I could mix with a medium. I do wonder if, like above, they will still glow when mixed and printed?  I heard from some friends that make scenery that Flints stock the best UV paints...very pricey though...and still need to be diluted with a medium. Screen Colour Systems in south-west London stock a fluorescent white. Maybe I will try this...but will it print onto plastics/glass?


Reflective paints could add another really interesting idea, though are very expensive. I wonder how easy they are to print with given that they contain tiny glass beads. And how reflective they will be once mixed into a printing medium.


Printing mediums for printing onto plastic & mirrors.

I have considered using a two-pack option...but lack of colour choice.

I emailed Steve Wood screen printing supplies...the website is very useful, has a huge range of inks. Was suggested that I try Permaprint Premium Clear....let's see how this goes!

Grid lighting

Thought I would try out the lighting on some other prints which use the blue and red grid idea. 

Not particularly successful...

Print&light stills

Using  a combination of Brutalist and Constructavist ideas, I created images for screenprinting in order to play with the way colours interact with each other and with coloured lighting.

The colour palette was kept predominantly to the 3 primary colours, I used simple block shapes to really keep the emphasis on the colour.

I then got the coloured lights onto it!

This is one example of the same print, under 5 different coloured lights:

 


Notice the difference between the 1st and 3rd images..the section of the print which is yellow disappears in image 1, yet in image 3 shows as almost black.
(also the appearance of blue under red light looks black too)
I think this yellow may feature quite heavily in my work from here on...

Painting & Lighting

Bought some coloured strobe lights!

Had great fun playing with the lights and drawings and paintings. The video is an example of a quick acrylic painting in process colours (cyan, magenta, yellow) to test the effect of different coloured lights on different colours.

Love how yellow appears totally black under red lighting!

3-d Experiments

Decided to print my own 3-d grid paper to see how effective it is at a larger scale:

Drawing on top of the grid has to be in black ink to work properly. Heres a drawing of some random graphic shapes inspired by Constructivist art.

I then thought about using other styles of grid paper. For example,  a logarithmic grid. Printed in pale blue, with another layer n coral printed at an offset angle. The line print on top is a repeat design inspired by drawings of Brutalist architecture.

Thinking about printing onto different surfaces and reflective materials...Logarithm grid printed in two colours onto silver paper. 

Some Ideas...

Always loved using lighting and projection in my work. Definitely want to continue with this.

Love the work of Carnovsky and the use of different lighting in changing the images that appear.

Considering using glow-in-the-dark or UV reactive pigments to print onto paper, with the idea of creating an installation that changes with the light.


Wallpaper by Flat Vernicular:

3-D experience...

Such a massive hype on 3-d films & TV over the last couple of years.

Went to the "Death: a self portrait" exhibition at the Wellcome Collection today and found one of these 3-d drawing pads in the shop.

It got me wondering about producing a giant interactive installation piece, where the viewers have to wear 3-d glasses, and can possibly even draw on the walls/floor themselves to create 3-d images.


So off I went to the Barbican to do some scruffy sketches and see if the paper actually works...

I'm thinking that the idea behind the paper would work better on a larger scale...so I shall print my own!

Brutalist Architecture

I have always found inspiration from buildings and other architectural forms. Recently I have developed a love of brutalist architecture; with its bare concrete structures showing proudly. The patterns and graphic shapes found within brutalism are what intrigue me most.

The estate that I call home, in South-West London. The architect was Sir John Leslie Martin, who also designed the Royal Festival Hall on London's Southbank.

Flats in Berlin. Architect: Le Corbusier

Brunel University.

Other examples and information on Brutalism:

Pimlico Secondary School, London

Architects Alison and Peter Smithson

The Barbican Centre, London

London council estates, including Robin Hood Gardens, are often great examples of brutalism