Who Are We? Follow all my fake social media

Its been a strange few weeks keeping up all these different social media profiles and i have to say I've been getting really tied up in keeping up the pretense of these fake lives. Like i never realised how obsessed i would get with spending time on Pinterest and Instagram and the rush you feel when you get the likes within seconds of posting an image. The Aegle255 profile has been a bit frustrating, I've been getting likes on my Instagram posts but barely any followers, its been just as slow going for Pinterest and getting attention on Facebook. The whole thing makes me think about the social media i use in my real life and how little i post and how little people seem to care about it. I suppose its how my realgirl261 feels, having these profiles that are a false representation of yourself getting more attention, people caring more about a life carefully crafted with a filter put on than the real you. Its funny that its happening to me though and i know that after this project I'm probably gonna kick start my own instagram and stuff to chase that like high again. This resentment that realgirl261 feels might lead to the creation of devil45701, an outlet of frustration at these beautiful, happy, aspirational fakes she's made.

So if you want to look at (or even follow) any of my accounts here they are(more added soon):

Realgirl261 Instagram

Aegle 255 Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook

Venus35813 Instagram

Devil45701 Twitter

Specialist Skills: Collagraph

Collagraph is another printmaking technique and one that ive tried before one time. This technique involves creating a textured collage which is varnished and inked to be printed. This collage plate cant be too textured because you wont see all the detail and it can break through the paper.

To print the collagraph you need to use a registration board, this is a numbered board you place the inked plate in and then the paper on top, the edge on the bottom left keeps your paper straight and always in line with the plate if you want to layer your prints. The registration board is placed between two wooden boards with padding and put into the book press to transfer, i used newsprint and sugar paper for these prints.

This collagraph was created with tissue paper, i printed it in black ink, white ink on black sugar paper and a red and green gradient which was quite difficult as i had to mix my own green.

Specialist Skills: Monotype

Monotype is a super easy printmaking technique, which allows you to draw directly in ink or trace an image as long as you use fairly thin paper.

The key is to roll out a really thin layer of ink to place your paper on top of, having too thick a layer can lead to patches of ink transferring onto the paper like the print below

These prints were made by creating a gradient of light blue and red ink and drawing directly onto newsprint and tissue paper. I managed to get the ink pretty thin and avoid placing my hand on the paper making the ink transfer.

 

I wanted to create prints similar to Eveline Koljin's work. She looks at patterns in nature and created a series of intaglio prints based on images of bacteria and cells coming together in symbiosis.

Image by Eveline Koljin from her website

Specialist Skills: Plaster

Ive never worked with plaster before or done much sculpture but ive really enjoyed working this workshop. First off was using the vacuum former to create a mould to be poured. I was still struggling a bit with my theme for transformation so i took inspiration from a picture of the moon i got online. Using nuts and washers i created a mould on a block of wood and poured the plaster into it. When it dried i used a dry brushing technique to paint it.

 

I used a bit of sandpaper as the 'moon' and washers and nuts found the workshop cupboard as craters, on top of it all i put some plastic netting stuff which helped me get all the washers and bits out of the mould and created all the liney texture.

 

 

You might be able to see that part of the mould broke off where one of the larger nuts was

 

The dry mould was painted with black acrylic then when that was dry it was gently brushed with a tiny bit of white acrylic on a dry paintbrush.

Continuing with plaster was a bit of plaster carving, first of all i had to come up with a design so that i could create a clay wall to be poured. I decided to look at virus microbes for inspiration and create a sculpture based on the cold virus.

I started off with a clay wall to pour my plaster into, when dry this would then be carved into with chisels and grating tools like the yellow handled one.

This was actually really hard going and took longer than i thought, it was difficult to create the smaller spheres and keep them intact while i carved out the larger spheres the plaster was also getting drier as the days went on so carving was a bit more difficult.

Specialist Skills: Glass

Glass fuse was pretty easy but can take quite a bit of time to do. To fuse glass you just have to carefully cut and layer your glass to be baked in the kiln. Glass can be full fused or tack fused which doesnt fully melt the glass and can leave you with a textured effect.

 

This glass wasnt originally supposed to be orange but the colour changed in the kiln, i think it actually looks pretty good against the blue.

 

 

You cant see it properly in the photo but i used lots of pearlised  glass

 

This piece was made using glass crystals and powder and put in the kiln on a tack fuse, it really reminded me of the petri dishes ive been looking at and i was inspired to try and make a petri dish looking piece

 

  

I tried my best to cut a smoothe circle of glass and used the thin shards and crystals to get the petri dish look. I though the edges might smooth out in the kiln but not really, i still think the effect worked well the little crystals look like paint splatters.

Specialist Skills: Paper Folding

The Specialist Skills class is all about learning new practical skills and using them to explore the theme of 'Transformation'. Im not quite sure about my theme so far but we've started with our workshops the first being paper folding.