Good Week

Been a good past week I think! Really getting into my project now. I've started to draw ideas based on the weak mother as she's on her death bed. A bit morbid I know, but it’s an important aspect to the story as it its is based upon the daughters mourning for the loss of her mother and for the loss of her respected position within her family, as her mother’s death leads to cutting ties between father and daughter also. It is also at this stage that the mother makes her promise to never leave her daughter and to always look after her. This moment begins the remainder of Carter's 'Ashputtle' story.

I have literally included lines linking mother and daughter's hands to symbolise threads or ties. This shows that the mother will remain a part of the daughter's future experiences even after death. It also relates to the idea that the mother is furiously holding on to her daughter and (as we read on) will still posses the ability to control the girl (This is where my future plans to draw puppet masters and dolls comes in).

I have also began to explore the relationship between father and daughter by drawing them at the burial of the mother (whose grave is marked simply as 'mother, wife'. As she has no name, she is unknown, only these duties define her).

The threads between father and daughter are cut here, as the death seems to end their relationship. Father becomes a shady silhouette as his identity is also unknown. He barely appears within the stories; however his part is still very important. Without the father there would be no conflict between the women and thus no story. As Carter explains, the father is like God, ' he is the unseen, organising principle...he introduces the essential plot devices.'

This also makes me think of puppet masters as the girls destination is not down to her, but to the actions of her parents and future husband. The father must look down upon the neglect of his daughter, he could stop the actions and change the path of her story, but he chooses not to.

I then concentrated upon the rivalry or between the women, that is Ashputtle and her dead mother Vs the stepmother and her two daughters, when there should be love between new sisters and stepmother. The images also symbolise the jealously of the second family towards Ashputtle.

I have used blue and black ink washes to symbolise the sadness, loneliness, and the mourning felt by Ashputtle. She also cries upon the mother’s grave. Her tears assist the growth of the wishing tree, thus I feel blue is a relevant colour. It also adds an effective atmosphere to the drawings and is a change to using black ink as I usually do. The grey symbolises the ashes continually referred to within the story, and the description of Ashenputtle being covered in dirt and ash as she sleeps on the floor in the ashes due to her mourning.

I am not overly pleased with the quality of my first few images but as I relax and become more confident in the project, my images become more fluent and of a better quality.

On Thursday 3rd, we had our self promo crit, joined by Colin McHenry...We were faced with two bins, one meaning rubbish, and one meaning good! Mine actually went quite well, and was put in the good bin thankfully! Although they did prefer the stitched envelopes. I noticed that the screen printed frame envelopes were too fiddly, for someone with larger hands than my own, to remove the cards. The lectures stated that we could all make some kind of improvements before sending them to anyone. 

I was also supposed to have a tutorial with Louise on this day also, but the timetable clashed with my sign up time.

On Friday 4th, after Stuart Kolakovic's lecture (which got me thinking more about how to present my work in the degree show, by the way), I managed to get into the print room for the etching workshop with Charles! Was very good to refresh my memory of the process as i haven’t done etching since year 12. We didn’t get to use the aquatint this time, but I’m hoping to on the Thursday or Friday. Still not sure if I will use these as final pieces though. I don’t like the fact that after the careful process of preparing the etching plate, you then have to redraw your image straight onto the plate, leaving room for mistakes and loss of time if I am not happy with the image. Etching straight onto the plate may give off a nice effect however. We shall see....

I signed up for a tutorial with Derek on the Friday also, but had to cancel as the workshop was organised the day before and Charles was in the middle of demonstrating the etching process at the time.