EP
Inspired Musical Abstract
09.2011
Colored paper, Satin photo paper, Glue, Acrylic gel medium, Black and white ink-jet image
11½” by 8″
I made this piece for my Mass Producing Images/ Images in Society art class. We are studying printmaking techniques in particular. The finished product was achieved by a Xerox transfer process. Xerox transfer allows a black and white ink-jet image to be transferred onto a substrate. The substrate we transferred onto was Satin photo paper that was treated with colored paper. I chose to bring in a black and white copy of an etching originally done by David Hockney. What I did was first organize the colored paper in a pattern on the photo paper. Most of the colored paper I put down was in the shape of a square and I had a few free-form shapes in the composition. The colored paper was glued down. The next part of the process is getting the ink of the image on the substrate. A thin layer of acrylic gel medium was painted on the image and then the image-side is turned on the substrate. The image is burnished, which means it should be rubbed evenly onto the substrate. The last part is rubbing the paper of the image off with water so that the only thing that stays is the ink. The acrylic gel acts as a solvent to dissolve the ink of the image. The end result showed the details of Hockney’s piece I wanted to emphasize.
I chose Hockney’s etching, which is part of a larger series titled “The Blue Guitar”, because it was relevant to both my Global RAP and Crimes Against Humanity classes. The series was inspired by poems written by Wallace Stevens who was inspired by Pablo Picasso’s The Old Guitarist. The piece showed musical notes that represented the poetry, and I saw that those notes represented how we are learning hear rhythms all around us in Global RAP. Since the piece was indirectly inspired by Picasso, I saw that it related to Crimes Against Humanity. We discussed Picasso’s developments of a bull and talked about how abstraction can capture the essence of your subject. I did choose this piece because it shows a new simplification of a guitar. The piece is made up of simple lines, but the way they are composed and paired supports the rhythmic movement and feeling of inspiration from this piece. I chose the color yellow as part of my substrate and combined the color with the musical notes from the image. I did this because yellow looks like a warm color and it connotes a cheerful feeling. I wanted the yellow to represent how I felt happy to be learning something challenging because listening to the rhythm of sounds is something generally new to me. I wanted the pink free-formed shaped to represent my flowing into a new school environment and sense of relief for adjusting.