EXPERIMENTING MEDIUMS WITH CLINGFILM

For these experiments my aim was to see if the mediums would actually show up on the material as vibrant as I wanted them to, I wanted to explore the patterns that could be created if were to put more pressure on the stretched plastic when applying the dry mediums-Would the material break up the mediums texture? Would a warmer, brighter colour pick up shadows from the lines of texture? My aim is to re create the lines of blur from the visual inspiration I gained by photographing fireworks, From this particular experimentation I am hoping to gain an outcome which can be used as towards my final pieces with the surrealist collages.

I am talking about the second experiment at the bottom of the photograph as i have not actually used cling film within the composition but instead used it as a mark making technique, I have used PVA to create the texture as i knew that when dried the texture would become more apparent to being shown as 3D; I applied the PVA by using a piece of clingfilm, wrapping it tightly as a layer upon my finger and then dipping my finger into the PVA to then spread it across the black cartridge paper. Furthermore, i have decided to use black paper instead of white because i have been using white cartridge quite often and i wanted to explore how the experiments may differenciate, will they may there colours applied to stand out or will it make them appear more dull and less surreal?

From the fireworks inspiration i believe that they really do portray a relation to my work as the sky is a representation of the closest thing we as humans will see of looking into space. I believe the clingfilm was a good application as it left the texture to rest upon one layer after the other, Once dried with a heat gun I used the most vibrant yellow oil pastel I could find and began quickly moving my hand up the page to pick up raw harsh lines which i wanted to see if the dried PVA would show the texture and colour fully or if the colour would fade into the deeper shadows. Overall i really like this composition but i believe that to make it better i would've put more pressure on the oil pastel to see if the texture of the PVA  would become less obvious, or i could add another layer of PVA to eventually create deeper layers.

For this experiment i decided to firstly experiment with how oil pastels will react when being used on top of such a flimsy material which bundles into layers of texture when heated and tightened together,  i firstly stuck down the plastic onto black cartridge paper so i had a definitive surface where i knew the plastic was not able to move once blued, i then heated it and to my surprise it began to merge together to create ripples of rough texture, when touched it felt very sharp so i thought that maybe i wouldn't be able to use oil pastel as the plastic may be too wet for such a dry material.  I again used a yellow oil pastel as i wanted all of the experiments to show a different effect by using the same colour to enhance the texture. I quickly made marks using the same technique as before as to my surprise the colour showed up much more effectively with cling film as a surface in comparison to the  PVA. However, to improve i would again, add another layer of cling film and dry it on top to see if the colour begins to melt into the composition, also, i would do another experiment like this but do not have a papered surface , almost like creating a sculpture or a 3D object.

Following up from what i said i could improve upon from my last experiment about adding more layers to the composition to build on texture I have done so, i have used the same technique with the same surface and same colour of medium which is a vibrant yellow tone. Overall i really like how when the cling film is heated it begins to spread to the outer surface of its own material so the main textures which i could possibly work upon wouldn't be the main centre part of the piece. To improve I work add black oil pastels or maybe a wet composition which would spread easily such as indian ink to create texture and not making it appear to the viewer was material i am actually using, i want them to question what it is.

For this experiment I have created a sculptured piece by not using any surface where the clingfilm would stick to and instead see the difference of building up of many layers, I have added 4 layers of clingfilm and dried them all together instead of separate as i didn't want to have the hassle of using lots of glue. I have used yellow indian ink as the first base layer when the position had dried as i wanted to stick to the theme of using a continuos tone throughout this process of experimentation, I liked how the yellow ink had an easy spread across the whole composition as it is such a loose liquid substance that when you brush it onto an object or surface, it will spread across the whole without setting dry straight away. I also noticed that because the ink is so thin and with the colour yellow being a very see through tone, the colour actually began to create a translucent effect where you were able to see you hand behind it slightly, this is when i  began to think about adding it to a collage because i would be able to layer behind and on top. I then added blue indian ink on top after the yellow ink had dried because each time i heated the piece, the plastic got smaller and smaller until it was unable to move shape from being in a circle; i used bleu ink in particular as I wanted to contrast the colours being warm and cold tones, so once layering them i believe that it gave off a turquoise green shade which i feel does show a slight realist view there being lighter and darker tones where there is shadow where the heat gun has touched some parts of it more than other parts, for example, you can see that the top parts of the clingfilm where it has not been melted as such, there are lighter tones f yellow rather than the blue. This is when I had the idea of including black tones to exaggerate the shadow of the deeper textured layers, I used a pure black oil pastel to do this as i wanted to be in slightly more control of how much pressure  was adding to make parts appear more shadowed than others, i thought that  had used ink the colour would've spread quite quickly and it would've covered the lighter tones. To improve i think that i should try to do more of these or maybe include PVA  on the top to see if the texture when touched could feel more soft, and maybe  could blend the colours more easily whilst it fills the gaps of the deeper texture.

For this experiment i have repeated the same technique as above but have decided to reverse the main body of colours around so i would be able to see the effected change of including more blue indian ink in comparison to yellow, I used 4 layers of clingfilm as i begin to see a repetitive outcome of the texture building on the outer parts of the composition. Overall i prefer using the yellow ink as a background layer of colour instead of blue as i believe it reveals the lighter tones much better, I also used the oil pastel to extenuate the shadows where the layers of plastic were either hanging off the surface or where i believed they were showing the first layer of clingfilm.
Moreover, i photographed this experiment ontop of a rough wallpaper background to capture the texture through the whole image and not just the composition itself. I believe this relates to the background of being in a surreal other world where the colours are solely focused on being blues, red, purples and perhaps greens or yellows, i could see this composition being another world in which could be smaller and in the distance of a collage.

Carrying on from the reflection on what i could improve on from the last experiment I decided to try out using PVA ontop of the dried and layered plastic, I stuck it onto a black cartridge background because  had a feeling that the PVA would make the clingfilm thinner and could seep through it. I began to use the idea of using colours similar to the images you would see of the galaxies and being out of space and then wanted to re create one of the sparks from the images i took from the fireworks, i decided to crop and zoom into the colours that i saw. I heated 2 layers f clingfilm together because i wanted to allow the ova  to create the texture instead of he clingfilm, By doing this it enabled me to repeat layering via the PVA. I then added both red and blue ink to the PVA but added them with two different paint brushes so i were able to mix them into a combination of toning the colours n the centre of the piece, when adding the PVA i noticed that it actually hardened the cling film which had dried behind it. I really do think that this experiment is my favourite but to improve i think that i would do another one but add black ink to cover the white bits on the outer parts, Then i could perhaps do it on acetate?

For this experiment i wanted to mainly focus on not burning the plastic but creating holes so the texture would be shown more clearly by the ripping of material, By doing this I found that i would need to stretch the cling film across as surface so i used black cartridge because i feel that i shadows the colour much more effectively than white paper, also, the colour black acts as a primary background similar to the sky at night or out of space.
When heating the clingfilm i realised that it began to split straight away so with that in mind i added more layers until more texture was built around each small hole, this is what i was aiming to create instead of the texture being on the outer part of the pieces, I then used black indian ink and used a small thin brush to paint over the deepest parts of the plastic because i wanted to portray that it was apart of the background and  it being cartridge paper instead of white clingfilm. I then got a bigger paintbrush and began to fill the top layers with yellow ink and a wash of PVA to smoothen the holes and not make them look so rigid. Overall i like how i have added black ink to the holes of the texture but to improve i could add more black to the top edges to get rid of the amount of white from the clingfilm.