experience – chalon joy collingwood

As part of my ongoing effort to source primary reference sources (this was a weakness in my workflow during Semester 1), I’ve been for a visit to the local Botanical Garden and the Oriental Museum, both of which are kept my Durham University. To prevent this from being overly wordy I’ll just talk about the Garden today, but I’ll be sure to make a post on the Oriental Museum in the future as both were fantastic!

In an attempt to catch some nice weather for the first part of the trip, we visited the Gardens first- of course, this was a failure because when do we ever have nice weather in the UK? It was really misty and since it’s still February, there wasn’t much to see in terms of flowers and blooms. I did spot a few British flowers planted at the front, but since my project is based on Asian flora, this wasn’t applicable to my area of research.

My favourite area of the garden is the collection of greenhouses, which contain ‘exotic’ plants that aren’t native to the UK. This is where I collected most of my references of succulents for my terrarium project, and at a slower pace I was able to discover some really nice plants that I could reference for this project.

I also discovered another gem in the back conservatory of the greenhouse- koi fish! I hadn’t noticed these at all the first time I went in (I was in a pretty urgent hurry), so I took some time taking reference images of these fish. Here’s a pic of me employing my family to bait the fish with feed while I took photos haha:

Screen Shot 2019-03-01 at 13.03.07 — *Durham University Botanic Garden: Feeding the Koi/Koi Fish (Collingwood, 2019)*

After having a good mooch through the tropical section, we ventured outside to the main garden. Looking at the map, there was a cluster of areas that interested me; the Bamboo Grove (30), the Japanese Collection (31), the Oriental Collection (37), and the Sakura Friendship Garden (38)- see these on the map below:

Screen Shot 2019-03-01 at 13.31.20 — *Botanic Garden Visitor Map (Durham University, n.d.)*

It was quite a trek, and when we arrived at the Oriental Collection there wasn’t too much to see- mostly trees and the odd leafy plant, but compared to the variety in the greenhouses it was a wee bit disappointing. Since it’s out of season, the Sakura Friendship Garden was also a bit underwhelming. Now obviously this garden doesn’t focus on flowering plants nor are they in season, so I sort of expected it to be limited- however, this is the best selection that’s accessible to me, so it’ll have to do for now~

Screen Shot 2019-03-01 at 14.06.28 — *Durham University Botanic Garden: SAKURA Friendship Garden (Collingwood, 2019)*

On the plus side, I really enjoyed the Bamboo Grove! Plenty of mossy textures and interesting leaves and branches to photograph- these will definitely come in handy.

Screen Shot 2019-03-01 at 13.47.46 — *Durham University Botanic Garden: Moss Specimen/Lostachys Aurea (Collingwood, 2019)*

Despite the drawbacks, I really loved this garden- I’ve re-visited it quite often for inspiration and reference, the most recent being for my first experimental risograph project during Semester 1. That was a bit of a whirlwind visit since time was very short, but I was able to enjoy it much more this time around (despite there still being fairly little flora outside of the nice warm greenhouses!)

More in the next few days on the second leg of our trip- the Oriental Museum c:

[Edit 27th Feb: Oriental Museum trip report here!]

References

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Botanic Garden: Feeding the Koi [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Botanic Garden: Koi Fish [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Botanic Garden: Lostachys Aurea [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Botanic Garden: SAKURA Friendship Garden [photograph].

Collingwood, C. (2019). Durham University Botanic Garden: Unidentified Moss Specimen [photograph].

Durham University (n.d.). Botanic Garden Visitor Map [map]. Available at: https://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/visitor-attractions/Botanic_Garden/Durham_University_Botanic_Garden_Map.pdf [Accessed 20 Feb 2019].

To start the week, I’ll be working on concepts for the A4 screenprints we’ll be producing on Friday- as this is intended to be experimental, I’ll be straying away from my usual techniques, instead trying out digitally based fills for some of my initial ideas. For example, halftones, custom patterns, noise fills, and other fill techniques that produce results that will work well with a silk screen- since you can add lots of very fine detail with screenprinting, it’ll be a great opportunity to try these new styles out.

The last printmaking project I did involved monoprinting with a laser cut perspex plate- the results were mixed, but most importantly plate printing allowed for a lot less detail on the design (compared to screenprinting).

We were shown a mini tutorial on Photoshop and Cinema 4D, using shaded spheres as an example when applying each technique. They really looked like little planets… so I decided that using the solar system as a base would be a nice way to still include something from my own personal interest.

I may even make a second layer that details additional embellishment on the final design- this way, I can come back to my love of gold foil, using liquid glue to print the exact areas for foiling. I can then go in with the foil, brushing it on by hand. Going back to the monoprint project from Year 2, I used gold ink to work on top of my prints by hand after trying to print with glue… the pressure from the roller combined with the tackiness of the glue ended up a mess (lesson learned)

Screen Shot 2018-10-15 at 13.38.59.png — Collingwood, C. (2016)

Doing it by hand was tedious, but the results were good… yet not perfect. Look at the way the line art came out on the print- the details were too fine for the ink to stick to the printing plate when I rolled out the ink, especially with the white outline bordering the sky. It was a combination of the lines being too thin, and the ink being too thick. It was a lot more cost-effective compared to silk screen printing, but I feel plate printing is more suited to less detailed imagery.

With this new technique I’m trialling, I’ll be able to apply the foil with a lot more precision, yielding better results (as well as being able to have finer details on the base black layer). Also the gold foil is so much more vibrant and pretty compared to gold ink~

I’ll research this thoroughly before I go in and ruin all my prints, but I think if it works well this could be a really useful technique for the future.

There might even be the potential to create runs of hand-embellished prints (e.g. foils, inks, pattern collage, painted details), making each one unique. This could be a good way to market prints that I can sell, either at final show or on sites such as instagram, Etsy, etc.

Watch this space for a Friday update ♥

~~no pun intended~~

References

Collingwood, C. (2016). Cassiopia [Ink].

Tag: experience

Durham University: Botanic Garden Visit

Printmaking – Screenprint Experimentation