PrintMaking.

My final idea for my printmaking unit I decided to focus on photo transfer and Mono print. I wanted to focus on the view I have on my father. Growing up, I saw my dad in as a strong, giant, smart man but distant with me.

As I have grown up and away from him I have gotten to know him more as a person and not as my father. I am watching him age, get weaker and smaller... I see the lines on his face from years of laughter, worry and hard work. Knowing I am the cause of some of those lines that map his life on his face. I have a better understand of him now as an adult, and around the age he was when he had me. I have a better understanding of how he wanted to raise me and the freedom, I saw as distance, he gave me to let me enjoy being young.

I wanted to try and document how I see my dad then and now. The role I had in his life as well as the role he had in mine.

I liked the idea of creating memories and feelings towards my dad, when i stopped just thinking of him as there for me, but as a person who made decisions and struggled with the same things I am struggling with now.

I thought about how I was going to do this, how could I create what I was trying to say... how do you create a feeling and a thought through imagery.... how can I create something so in depth, something not even real, something translucent, with so many points, and layers....I would use layers. I would use tracing paper. After experimenting I came up with three images on tracing paper, that I had collaged prints and photo transfers onto.

The images I used all had meaning to them. The figures of my dad were taken on his first Holliday away from me and my sister. It was something I remeber being confused about why he wanted to be away from us so much. I used images of him walking away and on his own with empty space to try and capture that. I then used an image of myself when I was a child a photo taken of me away from my parents.

I took a mono print of the image and collaged it next images of my dad. I tried to work in both positive and negative space to represent the positives and negatives I have/ had about it. I distorted my dads face in some to give the impression of absence or an incomplete memory. I wanted to have both images of him walking away and standing forwards to try and capture the feeling of looking back and looking forwards.

I then layered them onto of each other and wanted to shine a light through them to again try and get the feeling of unfocused, blurry and a distance about it.

I wanted to suspend these but I felt it would get in the way of everyone else in the studio and decided if I used these in a gallery type setting I would suspend them with a light shining through the back.

I took photos of the prints first in the studio with just one light source and had some friends hold them for me.

I then thought about how I would arrange the layers, I like the fact they would be suspended and you would be able to see the different images that make up the front image. But I decided I liked them in this order.

I also took an image of it with over head lights and a lamp shining through the back to see if it would work that way also if need be.

I am happy with the final image but i think if i did this unit again i would have tried different types of printing on the tracing paper, like lino cut.

I like that i did something a bit different for my final image. I really enjoyed creating something with layers and put more thought into how it would look in a gallery setting.