I have to admit that I've always felt slightly distrustful of 'digital art'. I've not got much further than copy and paste when it comes to using online images, I have no idea how to use photoshop and l refuse to enhance photographs by using filters on my phone (I did it once and then spent ages trying to figure out which the 'real' one was) I've never had any desire to use any form of tech to make art. I'm firmly and proudly analogue. I've only just started occasionally printing out photographs as reference material, previously everything was based solely on sketches.
When I saw digital prints were included in the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair I wanted more of an explanation about how these images were made, I felt very ignorant and managed to elicit the odd explanation. Some were manipulated photographs, others seemed to be some sort of digitally manipulated college. I'm still not sure how I feel about these being included alongside traditionally made prints. If the artist didn't get inky fingers do they actually count as prints? Surely they're just digital art, reproduced in multiples? I'm struggling to understand where the line is drawn in the definition of a 'print'.
Anyway, I digress, what I wanted to reflect on was the last session last term and today's additional session 'The robots are coming and they are dressed in lace'.
I have to admit I very quickly gave up on the coding lesson. I have been slightly curious about coding since having children and repeatedly being told that all children will learn to code as it's a vital tool for the next generation. It turns out it's exactly what I thought it was: writing instructions for a computer. That's definitely a skill I'm happy to leave to someone who is has more patience that I do. I've never been great at 'school learning' languages (how do you be non-binary in French and why do teachers think conjugating verbs is so interesting?) I definitely don't speak 'computer'. It reminded me of Latin lessons with an ancient red-nosed nun, despite knowing it's rather important, I simply couldn't see the relevance to me. To be fair this session was much more like the Latin lessons with the other (younger, more interesting and not a nun) teacher who took the time to actually teach us the meanings of the words (the nun just made us read Latin text aloud) and I really enjoyed learning how words went through different languages and became the words we use today ('apricot' is derived from 9 languages!). I'm pleased I did it, I even managed to draw a very rudimentary face, but I knew from the start that this simply wasn't going to be relevant to my way of making art. Ticked the box, don't want to do it again (but hoping I'll have a vague understanding and stun the family if the children ever get coding homework!).
Today's additional session was really interesting and again, although I don't think I will use it in my work (not yet anyway) I think it's something that's important for me to know about. We used Mid-journey to create machine generated images. This was much more satisfying than the coding from a speed point of view, but I didn't like the images it created for me. They looked like something out of a sci-fi poster, too overly idealised, too obviously 'picturesque'.
The branches on those pine trees in the centre are scarily regular - not one of them has snapped off! There's too much black and the image feels rather scary the more I look at it. Also, if there was snow and frost those trees wouldn't disappear into blackness like that, there would be too much light reflected within the trees, especially with low winter sun, although, this picture doesn't seem to have one discernible light source, it's light from different places in different parts when you start looking closely. I'm being overly picky because it's a machine so I can't hurt it's feelings, and because I'm a human so I know more about what forests look like and how light behaves in different weathers and seasons.
The prompt I used was 'English forest in winter with an icy pond and bracken', vaguely describing the linocut I finished today. It doesn't appear to have put the ice in the pond but instead has added snow and frost elsewhere. I think it forgot about the bracken and has put some green bushes that I can't identify and some strange brown grass in. The grasses in my forest that stand tall are thick and hollow so they stand strong when dead, flat grasses keel over when they die.
This was my second prompt - I first tried asking it for a winter forest but it covered everything in snow, even when I added UK, or England, it doesn't seem to know we don't get much snow!
Many of the images it generated for other people made me laugh, but mainly because I could see the prompt and then see what it made. The images alone weren't funny. After the session I got the children to have a go. My 6 year old thoroughly enjoyed it and would have carried on for hours (he made a train in space and a flying car). My 8 year old (who draws a lot) found it frustrating as she had an idea of what she wanted it to do and it didn't meet her expectations. I thought that was very interesting, she'd already decided on the sort of image she was after and just wanted to use the machine's superior skills and speed in rendering her image. I was secretly rather pleased that it couldn't meet her expectations!
I can see how this could be useful in generating ideas for images, especially if the starting point was words. Doing this exercise made me realise that I don't think in words, I think in images, techniques, materials and layers. When I go to make art I don't start with a concept that's easily described verbally, I start with colours or shapes, or both. I have an idea in my head and I mentally place the idea on certain types of paper to 'try it out', I think about the size and how I'm practically going to make it. Once I've got the basics like that worked out then I start a design drawing, or making a plate or whatever the next step is. There's usually some sort of experiment going on so that will also have been thought about. I generally have an idea of what I'm aiming for but for reduction linocuts I respond to each layer as it happens to inform the next. For the collagraphs it's more a case of experimenting with colours and inking once it's clear what the plate looks like when printed and how it's holding the ink.
Part of my reason for wanting to undertake this course was to make me slow down, test, plan and consider. I find writing this blog is great, but I need to go back more and check what I wrote to see whether I've actually undertaken tasks I set myself, or print out or record these ideas somewhere. I would much rather have it all in a book, hence starting the workbook, to make me try to actually record some of the ideas and 'tests' that I do mentally. I worry that I have so many ideas that if I don't record then somewhere I'll miss them.
The beauty of writing things down on paper is that I can't delete the idea as I can in a word document - I've deleted so many versions of my aims and objectives in my study statements that I'm now worried that I've deleted something worth keeping! Analogue definitely has it's advantages! (Yes, I know I can track changes, but it's rather late now!)