Black and White Experiments

I decided to have a go at bleaching some black and white prints as I knew that it would work from the first time I bleached some old prints.
I had a bit of a nightmare with getting hold of some prints also. I'd ordered the first lot off Photobox and for this batch I went to Tesco and used one of their little kiosks. I didn't know there was a difference between the two (I thought that the Photobox printer was a larger scale kiosk) so I ended up with a bunch of prints that didn't want to absorb the bleach. I ended up ringing up loads of places round Manchester and going to Max Spielmann, Hobs and Entwistles to ask for scrap prints to test it on. I remembered a few years ago I'd got some large prints done at Asda so decided to bleach one and it actually worked! So I got myself down there and got a bunch of prints to do some last minute bleaching.
In all honesty, I am a bit disappointed how they turned out as they didn't quite have the same effect as the other prints. If I were to do this again, I would definitely use Photobox and do my research into the printers.

More Yupo Paintings

Today I painted a few more photographs onto yupo. I hope to try and integrate these onto other images if they are lacking in colour.

New Colour Experiments

Here I have bleached the new portraits I have taken over the past 2 weeks. Although they are colourful and look quite psychedelic they didn't work as well as I had hoped which I am really disappointed about. I think there is too much red in the bleach so if I were to use them I'd be inclined to adjust the colours. Also, with regards to a couple of the images, I feel that they need to be combined with yupo paintings.

Final Print Selection (5/8)

So far I have chosen 5 images that I want to use as my final pieces and display in the exhibition. Overall, I want to display 8 but I am yet to make up my mind on the other 3.

I chose this image because I think that the subject's outfit its stereotypical of the genre. I also like how the subject is standing as it is different to the other images below that I have selected. He is facing the camera dead on, whereas the others are slightly turned to the side. I also think that the added piece of yupo painting works well with the photograph as it is a similar colour to the subject's jacket.

I chose to use this image as the subject is very visually interesting to look at and he is about 10/15 years older than the rest of the subjects within the series. I think that by using this image it shows that psychedelia appeals to a wide range of people of all ages and the diversity within the fan base.

This image was chosen because I particularly like the bleaching and the subject's stance. The subject comes across as very confident and knows how she wants to be portrayed, which made it an easy selection. Part of the bleaching compliments the colours the subject is wearing, namely her handbag, which balances out the photograph.

I was told by several people that this was one of my strongest images and it was reminiscent of Diane Arbus's work. This was one of the main reasons for its selection into my final series. I love that there is a combination of awkwardness/proudness coming through from the subject. I think that the bleaching in this photograph was the most effective out of all of them put together.

Combining Yupo Paintings and Portraits

A few posts ago I had mentioned that I wanted to combine the yupo paper paintings with my portraits. I didn't think it necessary for all portraits to be combined because on some of them the bleach was very active due to a highly coloured background, whereas some were a bit more dull or the bleach had run down the page meaning it had gone a murky brown.
I selected three portraits and cut out part of my yupo paintings and put it on top.

More Photos

I managed to get a couple more shots today and yesterday. I decided that I would include a self portrait within the series to try and balance out the fact that the psychedelic community seems to be a male dominated one. I probably won't use it in my final prints and I'm not entirely sure about the background with regards to how it will take to the bleach as it is quite plain.

Yupo Paper

Finally my package of yupo paper arrived today. I cut it up into smaller squares and had a go with painting on it. You are supposed to paint it with water, then drop paint onto the water and then it expands and bleeds into the water and other colours you put on there. It is much more time consuming than I originally thought. You have to wait hours for the paintings to dry and there is definitely a technique to making the colours bleed together properly.