As a start on the actual creation of my piece for the John Innes Centre, I had already swept the local charity shops in the week earlier and found a good size mirror for a decent price. A sticker on the mirror told me it had been brought originally in 1982 and it was amazing to me to think that something which had existed in one very functional, basic capacity, waiting for someone to buy in a charity shop, would now be transformed into an entirely different artefact with a whole new meaning, to appear in a research facility in an archive for rare books.
I took the mirror into the workshop to take the frame off, and pick up my half sheet of 12mm MDF. I had picked 12mm as I wanted my piece to be sturdy, to give it the quality of an artefact instead of just a 2D image. I also wanted to then round off the edges of my design when cut, to increase the aspect of depth. The mirror's frame was quite attractive in itself and I vowed to integrate that around another piece at some point, to truly reconstitute every part of the mirror and minimize waste.
Next I carried both the mirror and MDF up into my studio to begin transferring my design from my sketchbook to the board. I used the mirror as a basis from which to work on the design because I wanted to utilize the maximum amount of reflective surface, to stand the best chance of capturing the element of the onlooker within the work. After I had completed the transfer I immediately realised I had potentially made it a little bigger than I had really intended, but I was very happy with how the drawing had gone, and making it smaller would enquire redrawing every element at some stage, so I was unwilling to do this. I also wanted to make this piece quite powerful and detailed, and size was an effective way to achieve this.
After this I primed the surface with white emulsion. I often work this way, picking the linework back out again with a pencil after a couple of thin layers, as it eliminates much of the messy initial sketchwork without having to effect the surface with any erasing. In the case of this work also, it allowed me to build up the primed surface gradually, and leave it mottled in areas which I hoped would give it an aged, uneven quality like the ancient papers of the books we witnessed.
I took the mirror into the workshop to take the frame off, and pick up my half sheet of 12mm MDF. I had picked 12mm as I wanted my piece to be sturdy, to give it the quality of an artefact instead of just a 2D image. I also wanted to then round off the edges of my design when cut, to increase the aspect of depth. The mirror's frame was quite attractive in itself and I vowed to integrate that around another piece at some point, to truly reconstitute every part of the mirror and minimize waste.
Next I carried both the mirror and MDF up into my studio to begin transferring my design from my sketchbook to the board. I used the mirror as a basis from which to work on the design because I wanted to utilize the maximum amount of reflective surface, to stand the best chance of capturing the element of the onlooker within the work. After I had completed the transfer I immediately realised I had potentially made it a little bigger than I had really intended, but I was very happy with how the drawing had gone, and making it smaller would enquire redrawing every element at some stage, so I was unwilling to do this. I also wanted to make this piece quite powerful and detailed, and size was an effective way to achieve this.
After this I primed the surface with white emulsion. I often work this way, picking the linework back out again with a pencil after a couple of thin layers, as it eliminates much of the messy initial sketchwork without having to effect the surface with any erasing. In the case of this work also, it allowed me to build up the primed surface gradually, and leave it mottled in areas which I hoped would give it an aged, uneven quality like the ancient papers of the books we witnessed.
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