Is anyone else sick of the word THESIS?

One of my goals this week was to push my 2-d thesis work towards a more show-able version, for the senior show which is coming up in a few weeks. The vellum is nice, but it needs to be framed, and I don't want to use frames. Hence, no more vellum...
So, I wandered the aisles of Lowe's, looking for any and all smooth surfaces. Tiles, glass, sheet metal, plexi, plastic... it all seemed to scream out for me to dump some ink on it.

(Dear Lowe's employees: No, I am not remodeling my bathroom. Yes, I want to buy your broken and rejected tiles. Quit looking at me like I'm crazy. I'm an artist.)

This is a stoneware tile. It has a nice texture, which I think complements the way the ink moves and settles as it dries. But one of my classmates pointed out that it exudes permanence, which seems to negate the theme of my thesis. I agree.

This is on a smooth, glossy white ceramic tile. I like the delicacy of detail that seems to be possible. I want to try it on a larger tile. (This one is 6" x 6")

This one is on glass. It was originally really dense and overworked. I was in the process of "erasing" it, and stopped when I realized I liked where it was. I added the drops of gold ink, then forced myself to stop. The glass is layered over a sheet of bristol board which I brushed with graphite powder. I love working on glass!

 If there's one lesson I've learned over the last few weeks, it's that I chose the right theme for my thesis. I can't NOT work on it, I can't NOT think about it, and even when I intentionally try to not work on it, I still do. 

I had a lovely talk this afternoon with a grad student, who suggested that I ought to try and find common ground between my 2-d and 3-d work. I agree! Right now, both are abstract representations of the same concepts, but they don't necessarily relate to each other. Installed in the same gallery, you probably wouldn't guess they were from the same artist. Hmmm. So, this will be my challenge: not only do I want all new work in the senior show (which is ridiculous, it's in about three weeks) but I want it to be cohesive. Which means I mean to make adjustments to my processes in both sculpture and drawing. Hmmmm.

I also experimented with layering glass. Each sheet of glass has two sides. The piece below essentially has 4 layers: The bottom of the top layer of glass, the top and the bottom of the lower piece of glass, and the white paper beneath, which was stained with the ink run-off while I worked on the glass.

It's kind of impossible to see in the scanned image here, but the layers create depth, like a hologram, and the colors sort of glow, as the glass is almost as reflective as a mirror. I'm not especially in love with this particular composition, but I definitely want to try more.

I wasn't sure if I liked the bottom layer, so I scanned it without to see the difference. It doesn't really matter, because it's just an experiment, but if anyone has an opinion on which version is better, let me know.

 I need to stop blogging.

I have a LOT of work to do.

the FLUX series (more fun with alcohol ink)

I have done some more experiments with ink over the last few weeks. I feel as though I'm getting closer to not calling them just "experiments" anymore... soon...

This reminds me of an alien landscape. For some of these, I had a hard time deciding which way was up and which was down. I had them pinned to boards as I made them, so I could easily turn them to get the ink to run in different directions. So, even as I make them, they don't have a top or a bottom.

This one is going to be one half of an art trade; another artist, Megan, will give me one of her pieces in exchange for this one. She liked the way the blue streaks look like wood grain.

This one is a bit overworked, maybe, but I like the colors. It looks like one of those pictures taken by the Hubble space telescope.

This is the first print I made with this technique. I sprayed two pieces that I didn't really like with alcohol, then I pressed them together face to face. After pulling them apart, I ended up with two images that were perfect mirrors of each other. I plan on trying this more, because I have LOTS of rejects to mess with...

I like the neutral colors of this one.

This is another print; it has a mirror twin. I like the way the ink rearranges itself during the printing process.

This one is on acetate (the others are all on vellum). Acetate is harder to work with; it gets sticky and messy and curls up on itself. As a result, I'm less likely to overwork the image. This ended up being one of my favorites.

 Next up with ink: I have some very large sheets to work with, of both vellum and acetate. They are expensive, so I have been wanting to get more control with the stuff on smaller pieces first.
I also have glass, mirror, and ceramic tiles to experiment with.
There's a big, scary, pre-thesis show coming up in a few weeks, and I would like to put some of these ink pieces on a gallery wall, to see what people think of them.