31/10/19
I’ve been working on a steel plate for the first time, it’s a large plate, about 40x50cm, I wanted to try some new intaglio techniques to start building up my skill set so I can achieve these dark layers I’m looking for. This is not the final piece, next week I intend to go back to the line plate and add in some more texture using tissue on soft ground.
This is a departure for me in that I began the portrait with sugar lift directly onto the plate with no preliminary drawing. My feeling is that perhaps I am better off starting with drawing then going in with techniques to knock the drawing back a bit. It didn’t give me the freedom I had hoped.
Perhaps I am a person that needs the drawn boundaries to know my basic structure and work on my images from there. I’m coming to accept and embrace how I work instead of assuming I must always be doing it wrong. There is no such thing in art and I need to develop my resilience and confidence in my own abilities.
Having said that, this piece hasn’t worked, I’m going to draw a line under it and go back into the plate and make a mess and see where it goes. It’s the first piece I’ve done since finishing my paper and I think inevitably it’s too tight and over thought. I know I want to create more emotive darkness in my portraits and work on my drawing skills with by going back to daily sketchbook drawing. Increasing my confidence in line work will hopefully help me approach plates with more freedom and increase my willingness to take risks.
Annie Burrows suggested I look at Maria Lassnig for the way she approaches her portraits based on feelings and senses.
Marigold Plunkett 