Fall
In this drawing I am trying to express the point when I emotionally fell apart. I have always possessed a natural resilience and as a person was pretty happy to go with the flow of those around me. I gave birth to my daughter at 39 years of age, within the next 3 years I lost both my parents, which led to me embarking on a art foundation and then a degree. I think the culimination of these events led me for the first time to really question who I was and what I had come from, and importantly how my adoption had effected me subconsciously. I have no doubt that my age also played apart in this as I was entering into my mid/late 40's. It was like someone had slid open a lid and all the questions I kept buried, or didn't even realise were there, flew at me all at once.
I was fairly pleased with this drawing it didn't feel quite right in the way the circle trails down the page. So when I came to re-draw it on mark resist I worked on thickening and twisting the columns that fall from the circle, so it appears more jelly fish-like. Print wise this has proved to be the hardest image for me to be satisfied with, compositionally I struggled with the all different elements I was trying to incorporate. When working on The Cut and making the positives for the circle that drips through the image, I made several attempts as the ink didn't drip in a straight line at first, it split off in different directions and looked like a streak of lightening or river flow from above. I thought this might work with the idea behind this part of the triptych, accentuating the idea of being broken or on a journey.
I wanted to keep the bigger circle as it alludes to a microscope with the idea of everything coming under scrutiny. The two smaller circles I printed with very translucent ink base and set them to the back of the picture. And although I like these elements on their own, in retrospect I don't think they work with this image. It crowds the picture and has a impact on the simplicity which works better with this idea. I was trying to use colours that I don't normally use, the yellow is a lot cooler than I would normally go for and the pink a lot warmer, I found these colours in a hazel tree leaves as they were getting ready to drop, again tying in with the idea of falling, and also thought they might work well with the red of the bigger circle.
First prints with with the smaller background circles.
I had always imagined the larger circle red, red for blood and anger, red is how I felt in all my confusion. However this didn't work as I hoped as I didn't like the red with the yellow and pink, it seemed to make the image too 'sunny.' So I tried it with a blue circle, as I thought this might sit better in contrast with the other colours, again it didn't quite work for me. I realised it was the shape and texture of the circle that wasn't right, it wasn't thick enough or broken enough. I re-drew it deliberately with more drips and texture in the actual circle to give a sense of damage. When re-printing I returned to red but a darker shade which was more appropriate to the meaning of the image, and was much happier with the results.
Re-print with textured circle.
I had drawn another another flower / hair form which seem to fit perfectly within the flow of the drips. I like the ambiguity of the forms but that they allude to hair, as on a very basic level my hair has been a big part of my identity.
Although I am happy with all the elements of this piece and where they are placed, I am not happy with the printing of the teardrop circle. In retrospect I didn't add enough medium to the acrylic paint when printing and so had to pull this layer twice, as a result I think this is too black and heavy and need to be re-printed.
NB: Will reprint to achieve a better finish on the main circle, experimenting with adding shine to the red colour and using thiner papers.