About the Author - Print Development

With time running low, it's got to the point where i've made the decision to reduce the number of prints i'll be making from 4 to 3. 4 is a lot tidier number than 3 i know, but in reality its not going to happen, what with this 'masterpiece' animated sting I've still yet to make. i'd rather make 3 prints to the best of my ability than squeeze out 4 rushed below-par productions. Maybe if my few days screen printing before the xmas break had gone a bit smoother then I might've been in a better position to make 4, but as it stands its looking like ill have to go and re-do the original turkey images to a standard I'm happier to submit instead,but it's the sort of challenge i like to set myself - to better my previous efforts and improve my screen printing methods in general. It's all a learning experience.


With the 'nocturnal animals' image not really coming together as i'd hoped, i set about sketching a completely new composition, trying incorporate some earlier imagery from my sketchbook development work, that i quite liked but felt it needed more added to it and didn't work as a stand alone image. They both featured hands reaching out of a well-like hole in the ground, wells being a recurring theme in Murakami's stories.

The whole composition would be based around my interpretation of a scene in the book that takes place in a subterranean tunnel, with waterfalls that leads to an underground science lab housing hundreds of mammal skulls. Well, at least i'd try and fit as much of that in as possible. It also needed be visually similar to previous print designs, which the nocturnal animals initial designs were failing to do.

                 

Although i initially struggled to bring all the desired elements together in one happy bunch, i found that good old scamping saw me through. It's actually an aspect I've been really enjoying of late - so much so that I'm finding myself not wanting to move on to the refining and final draft stage until i'm absolutely sure that i know what i want the final outcome to look like and that it all works! This is something that once upon a time i would rush head first into, with minimal development and all thoughts would be on the polished final piece. So maybe I am capable of change..?