OUGD505 - Covered - Post-Exhibition Experimentation

After seeing the exhibition yesterday I did some experiments with the stencil I used for the text on my folder to try and look at alternative covers for my book that might've been more suitable for the exhibition by making more use of the two colour stipulation.

I started by scanning the front and back of the stencil so I could digitally make use of the marks left on it by the blood and ink.

 

I found that when trying to produce an outcome that was completely digitally based strayed too much from the roughness of the concept I was trying to stick too. The best digital version I got was this, which I don't think is better than the version I submitted.

Because of this I went back to the print room and tried adding ink to the debossing block, to try and neaten up the application of the ink to the paper.

I only had two sheets of the stock I used left, and the difference between the application of the ink between the two showed that this wouldn't have worked as well as I would've wanted it too without a lot of persistence and wasted paper.

To try and get the deeper and more prominent debossed effect, I tried pressing the block into the greyboard stencil, as this was thicker than the paper, which left a larger room for the depth of the debossing. However, the board was too sturdy and so the embossing was about the same depth as it was on the paper.

During a conversation with James Holt after I told him I'd been printing with blood he suggested that an alternate route I could've gone down would've been to stain the grey board with blood and screen print on that, which would've allowed for a tidier finish. I wish I had have had this conversation two weeks ago, because this would've been a really good experiment. Not only this, but because the grey board would be weakened by the blood, it would be softer and easier to deboss into, which would've possibly allowed me to get the more prominent debossed effect I wanted.