The ink blotting workshop was very experimental as I was working on creating random patterns using ink blotting. I discovered that it is very difficult to produce consistent results or replicate other ink blot artworks. Before any of us began working practically with the ink blots we started by conducting some research and documentation on existing uses of ink blotting as well as specific ink blot art pieces. We received a presentation from Rebecca, she introduced us to the work created by Max Ernst. We examined art pieces such as 'The Barbarians', 'The Petrified City' and 'Dreamscape'. This was to give us an insight into surrealistic artwork and possibly provide some inspiration for us. Personally I did not find Max Ernst's artwork inspiring, but it was interesting none the less.
The next artist that was researches was Vini Naso, who created the artworks depicting Tree Spirits. This example of work was created digitally however I get the impression that the basic design and form of the creature could have been inspired from ink blot designs. This work created by Vini Naso was quite inspiring to me and I made a mental note to attempt to create an animal like ink blot design in reference to Vini Naso's art.
The Tree Spirit artwork was created within a 3D modelling software called, Z-brush and ended up winning 1st place in 'Beautiful Bizarre art prize 2020'. The work of Vini Naso is not limited to the likes of this, they have also worked on icons for massive, globally known companies, "His commercial portfolio spans icons of the design world, brands such as Nike, Microsoft".
Another very interesting piece of artwork that Rebecca presented to us was by Cornelia Parker, this specific piece of art was created by acquiring "pornographuc video tapes that had been confiscated and shredded" (1 Quote*), then Cornelia had "extracted the ferric oxide component from the film, suspending it in a solvent to form a liquid and applying it to sheets of white wove paper." (2 Quote*) For me the most interesting part of the artwork is not its design, but the context that it was created and how. This was something very unique about this art piece as it wasn't the design that was 'toxic' itself, but the actual medium it was created from was very 'toxic'.
I took it upon myself to research further on examples of ink blot artwork. I came across Alexander Cozens, a British landscape artist. I discovered one example of their work that used ink blots to create landscapes, it was called 'Plate 4' and appeared at the 'Tate' as an exhibition. This wasn't something I wanted to try and produce myself myself as I didn't have the experience nor time to create an ink blot landscape, but either it was intriguing.
I began to create my own ink blots and experimented with using varying sized blots of ink as well as increasing and decreasing the amount of different blots I made onto the paper. This experimental technique produced some really interesting results. The image on the left displays my first test piece in which I used a small amount of ink drops and tilted the paper as the ink dried to create an image that looks similar to two different Japanese symbols. Then on this same piece of paper I tried using another method of pattern making by folding the paper over the inked areas to create elements of symmetry. This produced another really interesting concept and I decided to give it another few goes.
I attempted to merge this method of ink blotting with the concept of creating an animal like design. I created drops of ink to as an outline to my animal, however once I folded the paper and applied pressure all of the detail and most of the original shape was lost. The mistake I had made was a mixture of using too much ink and applying too much force which caused the ink to spread out too much and loose its form.
My final image involved experimenting with colour this time instead of form, size and ink droplet density. This ink blotting art piece was used to observe how merging and splitting colours would change the end result of the ink blot. The areas where the colours merged within the centre didn't have as much as a drastic impact as I expected, however you could still observe how the blue and red ink did subtly change the other colours hue and how vibrant it was, as well as leak onto the opposite sides of the paper.
Overall this wasn't the most exciting or inspiring workshop for me as it didn't have a link to my main creative skill, on the other hand it was an enjoyable workshop and lead me to discover some artists that I found inspiring and interesting such as, Vini Naso and Cornelia Parker due to their unique concepts and art styles.
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