V&A Visit & Monoprinting

On 20 September, I had the chance to visit the V&A again and research about relevant work associating with my specialism. Textiles. Now, I could show so many photographs I had taken but I would be here all day so I have gathered two which depict the pieces that especially stood out and interested me.

The first room I entered was what was called the Reflection room by Flynn Talbolt, I've already done a study on this in my other sketchbook and my goodness it was a pleasure. The experience of actually walking through there was incredible. I noticed as I was on one side of the room facing the other side, I was able to see the reflection of the red lights upon the ceiling as I looked up. This goes for the same for the other side which was blue. The combination of these coloured lights created a purple colour within the center, something in which I never imagined. In fact, I wasn't aware that light was even capable of doing that. I was by far impressed.

Another piece that I was excited to find was the transmission presented by Alcantara. Originally, I had seen this on the offical V&A website and I was expecting quite a dimly lit room based on the image I had seen but it was nothing like that. The room was bright, too bright in fact. I disliked that part, as you can tell by the photograph, too much light was reflected off of the surface of the object. My expectations of the material were to be hard and rock solid but again I was wrong. Rather than a solid material, it was in fact a fabric which created the creases within the material as the structure curves into its position.

Although I was familiar with the process of mono-printing, I was unaware of the ability to draw into the ink with the end of the pencil. This was new to me. Unfortunately, I have not yet mounted up this particular piece as I haven't had a chance to photocopy it. Also it's an A2 size so I'm concerned that it might not fit in the photocopier so I may just have to take a photo of it. The monoprints to the left were printed with black ink, I felt I should have kept the colour simple because natural forms are less complicated. At first, I had no confidence as I was more worried of making a mistake and not being able to solve it. However, I soon gained confidence the more I drew into it and by the end I was pleased with what I achieved. The top was a positive print and the bottom was a negative.

To the right shows my other two outcomes. This process was very easy and simple, I needed to roll out the ink evenly on the board and place the objects gently on top of the ink. Here, I had to consider the compositions and I figured overlapping the forms slightly would give it a natural feel. It was then time to apply pressure for it to produce an imprint of the objects and I feel I did a good job of that. Also had a nice smell afterwards! :)