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The Object

Improving Upon Reality

Some mixed media artists like to tear pages out of old books and use them directly in their art. I tend to avoid this for a couple of reasons:

• Most books are not printed on acid-free paper. This means they will yellow and decompose over time, potentially affecting the paper around them as well. (Although buffering agents such as Archival Mist or Bookkeeper can help prevent this.)
• The original text may not feature a size or arrangement that best suits the finished piece. For example, the words may be too large or too small in relation to the overall work.
• Once you’ve used a favorite page - say, to pluck out one word from a dictionary - it’s gone, unless you can find and purchase another copy of that book.

Therefore, I prefer to scan in my sources pages - usually at 600 dpi to have lots of resolution and therefore flexibility to resize later. I then make test prints at various sizes on ordinary paper, laying these on top of the printed reference photo to see how they fit. Once satisfied, I’ll then print the manipulated scan on acid-free paper that might also have a color or texture that better suites the piece. In particular, I like printing on Japanese kinwashi or ginwashi, which have very prominent fibers for texture while also being stiff enough to safely travel through a printer.

Below is a before and after comparison of the Combe text referenced above. On the left is a scan of the original page; on the right is a cleaned-up version where I subtly widened the text slightly to better fill the space reserved for it, removed the page number, emphasized the title, and shifted the title to the left - again to better fill a nook inside the underlying photo:

As described previously in the post on my piece Seeking to Understand, other papers were then chosen to vary the texture and tint across the otherwise uniform color of the rock in the original photo. One of the papers featured various pictograph symbols - I enjoyed the inside joke of including examples of primitive art to juxtapose with Combe’s text about refined art. The final collage was then lightly coated with Golden Digital Ground to better receive the ink of the rock photo, which was printed on top of the collage.

The result was then fixed on a masonite panel for stiffness. To avoid “SID” (Support Induced Discoloration), the masonite was first treated with two coats of Golden GAC 100 to make sure brown spots didn’t migrate from the wood through the paper. After mounting, the paper was sealed with an acrylic gel topcoat that included UV protectants.

Final Assemblage

After wrestling with the theme of the text I chose, in the end I chose to run with it when it came time to selecting what materials to add on top of the collage/photo composite. As the text suggested an artist must be intimately aware with the subject they are representing, I chose samples of animal (coyote and mink bones), mineral (pieces of jasper) and plant (fibers, wood, and a pepper pod) for my assemblage. Continuing with the inside joke about primitive art, I also included beads with ancient symbols carved into them. The contrast between the dimensional, bone-white mink’s skull and the flat, darker orange print obviously made it the focal point, becoming a second interpretation of the piece’s title: The Object.

As can be seen above, I mounted the panel in a “floating” frame, exposing the assemblage elements and the texture of the papers to the viewer rather than hiding them behind glass or plastic. This mounting is obviously exposed to the elements and more fragile to transport, but I feel the ability for the viewer to more closely interact with the piece yields a far more compelling result.

This panel in this piece, like the others I’ve discussed recently, is 12” x 18” - a limitation I imposed on myself based on both the resolution of an older camera (a Canon 10D) and the width of our older printer (a 13” Epson 2200). Now that I have a camera with more pixels (Canon 5D mkII) and a wider printer (24” HP Z3100), the new series I’m working on is being created for 16” x 20” panels, with a goal of working up to 18” x 24” by the end of next year. I’ve encountered a few issues working at this larger size; I’ll share more details once I’ve worked through some of the problems and have some finished pieces to show.

things to come…

Our photographs and artwork, as well as content contained in our books, videos, blogs, and articles for others sites are all copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed. Other examples of my mixed media work may be found on my artist web site.

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Seeking to Understand Chris Meyer | 08/20 My process for creating a mixed media piece about knowledge systems. It’s been awhile since I walked through the creation of one of art pieces that started life as a photograph, so I thought I’d pick one of my favorites: Seeking…

Digital Printing 101 Chris Meyer | 02/18 The basic steps to getting what you see on paper match what you saw on your screen. One old theory of knowledge was that we were born knowing everything (having gained that knowledge in a previous life), and it was just a matter of “remembering” that which was obvious…

Avian Aspirations Chris Meyer | 01/29 A journey from a landscaping rock to an abstract collage. The primary reason I agreed to write this Hybrid Artist blog was to share information about using photographs as the basis for creating collages as well as other forms of abstracted…

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