Shania Sampson

Soul/City an exploration of print.

Chosen Destination: Arthur’s Quay.

Working in small groups we each chose a destination (through a series of events) located throughout Limerick City. Each group collaborated on two main book forms using prints we created from exploring our destinations, and creating a collaborative print using a Lino Matt to tie the work together.

This project helped us communicate, create and understand print in a whole new light and allowed us access to new areas of print throughout LSAD and the print community of Limerick.

- Overall Thoughts -

Print Van Go

Some of my work from the event held yesterday at John Square by Aoife Barrett! I really enjoyed this fun, relaxing and creative day out to just make art, socialise and print whatever you want! Bringing the soul to our city.

Soul/City (completed book)

After working as a group over the past few weeks creating unique prints associated with Arthur’s Quay, we created this amazing and fun book of the soul of our destination.

From cutting up prints to making quick and fun little stamps for our book, we have collaborated all of our ideas into one piece that we are proud of and have had a lot of fun making. Each page combines our visual representation of Arthur’s quay, from the outside layers right to the inside stores and restaurants, while adding a sculptural window on top to complete our book!

Collaborative Prints (part 2)

Collaborative Prints (group project)

Over the Easter we were tasked with creating a design based on our city destination (Arthur’s Quay) using an A3 Lino mat to create our print. As a group we decided to split the mat and create two different pieces that would each describe Arthur’s Quay.

When deciding how we would combine these prints together, we laid the pieces down and did a quick brain storm and then went straight into some trial and error. We felt using a black ink would be too much for these prints so we decided to go with different shades of grey almost giving a newspaper type look!

Pop Up book using Prints

Working in our groups, we created fun little pop up books, from our previous prints we have created throughout this project based on our city destination.

City/Soul Lino Work

During the Easter break each group was given a piece of Lino to work on based on the area of the city you had chosen (Arthur’s Quay). As a group we decided to split the Lino mat and each do a piece we feel represented our chosen area.

I decided to focus mainly on the buildings outside layer for this project, as I feel the outside holds just as much history and character as the inside. Studying the ‘grit’ of the building I interpreted this piece into an abstract form of Arthur’s Quay, from the many windows, to the unusual patterns found on each vent.

After many black and white trial prints I decided to create some fun patterns using colour and the masking tape acetates I had been working with before. With the help of Des, we mixed individual colours (making them opaque) allowing them to be layered on top of each other and some white paper to be inked on.

I wanted these pieces to be fun but detailed inspired by the outside layers of Arthur’s quay (vents, brick, shape, lines etc). I had also used some cuts of acetate and tracing paper to create some more shapes in these prints bringing new techniques to the printing stage and working out what suits best.

I truly enjoyed the overall process, between mixing the inks and learning how to incorporate many materials into just one print I felt I gained much knowledge while also having a bit of fun!

Here are just some of the first prints I did using two of my masking tape acetate pieces. I wanted to begin printing them in black first to see where the ink would lay and to get used to using the rollers, ink palettes and everything else in the print studios.

Last Thursday I had begun developing my ideas for this project based on the unusual and intriguing patterns formed throughout Arthur’s Quay. For now, I decided to focus mainly on the vents and their amazing line detail as I found it the most interesting when observing the building itself. I began sketching and forming ideas from the research we had gathered on our trip, using the lines and geometric shapes I had seen throughout my sketches.

Once I had formed enough information in my sketchbook I grabbed some printable acetate and began creating these line patterns using a mix of masking tape and electric tape to see the different textures that may appear. I hope this week to make a few trial and error prints to see what I can learn and what I can create through this project!

John Ross

John Ross was born and raised in the Highbridge section of the Bronx. He discovered his love of drawing as a young man, sketching his friends and their pets in the building in which they lived. He is remembered today as an outstanding printmaker, painter, author, and educator. The United States Information Agency selected him to be an artist in residence in Eastern Europe, where he taught printmaking in Yugoslavia and Romania. It was during this time that he helped develop the collagraph technique, in part serendipitously. He was getting copper plates for etching from Vienna, when the supply ran out. Ross and Romano devised a process of gluing together textures on a cardboard backboard and printing on an etching press a kind of printed collage a process for which they would become famous. He embraced the process, as he enjoyed the freedom of the variety of the textures and the creative ability to arrange them at will.

“One of the most useful printmaking techniques for my images,” said Ross “is the collagraph, which I helped to develop. The plates for this method are generally made of mat board with gesso adhering paper, fabrics, cardboard, and found objects to the mat board base. Razor blades can cut lines and other shapes to place on the base. From these ordinary materials, I can create city streets, mountains, canyons, pueblo dwellings, oil refineries, skyscrapers, and other constructions, either realistic or visionary.”

References:

https://oldprintshop.com/exhibition/john-ross-retrospective

Soul/City

-Initial Research-

On beginning our new project each group had to observe a specific section of the city and gather as much research as they could, be it historical, local, unusual or by looking at the buildings themselves.

Screen Printing (Final Prints)

Here are the final prints from my screen printing experimentation. I really liked cutting the initial stencils for these words it was surprisingly calming to me, and overall I’m quite happy with these prints preferably the newspaper textured print.

For this projects theme (Movement), I decided to focus on the idea of ‘Words’ and how they revolve around our life.

My chosen Electives for this project were as follows:

- Painting

- Printing and Contemporary Practice

- Graphic Design

I came across the idea of words through protests when researching initial concepts, mainly focussing on the posters associated with such protests. After investigating further research I decided to focus on words both globally and personally, as both types cause completely different movements throughout life. I started to focus heavily on typography and how each typeface can change the way we think about certain words, while trying to incorporate emotion into each piece.

- Overall Thoughts -

Words of emotion painting

Inspired by my graphic design piece and the idea of words having an emotional connection, I decided to create a simple little painting using acrylic paint and a quick poem I made up that i felt had emotion shown through it.

I used pink for the background because of its soft appearance, making the words seem more light and full, while the red block for the actual words itself allowed them to showcase a bit clearer and give that movement of love.

Graphic Design Work

After a few sketchbook designs and playing with colour I finally create this piece digitally using my little knowledge on adobe illustrator.

I wanted to keep in theme with the idea of words almost flying past us everyday like news headlines just constantly being thrown at us but try and familiarise it. I decided to use the common Irish ‘goodbye’, on the phone (bye,bye,bye,bye….etc) and combining that with something as important as the term ‘I love you’. For as many ‘byes’ you might get there may only be one ‘love you’ and that is the one you never forget. I feel words express emotion many of the time, and while headlines create stress or maybe even fear sometimes, ‘I love you’ creates something completely opposite a feeling of almost security and happiness.