Ink Blots
For my overall idea to work I needed to figure out which was the best method for creating ink blots. I decided to try a few techniques to see which one had the best result.
I researched online different methods that can be used: - painting with a brush - adding dots of paint - using string and ink I had to work through what method would be best by trying several experiments using these techniques. |
Techniques
Painting with a Brush
Painting with a brush simply entailed using ink or watered down acrylic paint and painting one side of the page with a design. This technique was a fairly easy method to do but it did have some issues with the process overall. Due to the paint being watered down it dried very quickly and made the printing particularly difficult, as the transfer onto the other half of the page became blotchy and did not transfer full. It also meant that I had to rush to layer down the paint so that it would still be wet enough for a complete transfer. I found that this process although had strong outcomes didn't work as well as I hoped it would.
Paint Dots
Using small dots of paint as a method was a very familiar technique, as it was something I was taught as a child. I immediately thought that this technique would be the best one to create strong impressionable ink blots. It seemed that using a thick base of paint made the ink blot lose any shape or detail that I imagined it would have. It also took longer to dry as paint was a thick layer. The paint also didn't give me much variety in shape so they all looked similar to one another.
Ink and String
After researching several techniques, I came across the ink and string method an it seemed to be the most promising. I didn't have any ink but the watered down acrylic that I had used before work just as good. I looped a long piece of string around a paint brush so that I could have a stable support for when I was applying the ink to the page. The string worked better than I anticipated, the whole process was very easy to do. The ink and string was a method that I had more control an ease with as I didn't need to worry about a design before I applied it as it was easily manipulated. This method was the only one I found a proper success with when it came to recreating an ink blot design.
Creating The Inkblots
Now that I have decided on using the string and ink to create my inkblots, I began to work with various types of paper and sizes to see what would be the best to use.
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I worked on various papers to see how striking the contrast would be with the ink blots. I used black craft paper, white paper and old book pages. I wanted to see how the ink blots would look when I used different pages and see how prominent they would look. I also wanted to make sure I used different coloured paper as I knew that these would be used in photoshop. I needed to make sure that I can manipulate the overlay of the these so that the inkblot alone sits on top of my models face.
I found that red and black ink combined together gave such a contrasting design, the colours really stood out on the pages. I liked how they both looked layered on one another as well as when I used them individually. I found that using red and black helped to portray the emotion that was going to be captured in my piece as these inkblots are to reflect mental/psychological disorders.