Box Printing

I've Been wanting to try printing with boxes for a while since seeing some work in this medium.

The subject of structure seems a good opportunity for this technique as I'm looking at the physical structure of the town, its land marks and its industry so representing this by playing with the physical structure of cardboard boxes unfolded and placed on the paper firstly in rows to imitate rows of houses.

I then printed them by layering them in groups to give an impression of a  jumble of town buildings.

I'm really happy with how some of these turned out and am encouraged to develop this further.

There are a few variables which make it  a little hard to control. So working on developing how to control the composition, and colour.

What I really like is the texture from the ink especially as it builds up on the boxes. 

Lots of layers and colours came through.

The more beat up the boxes became the more texture and colour came through.

The heavier prints with a thick layer of ink are very strong.

I did multiple prints as the ink was wearing off by applying extra pressure to the printing press.

The results of these prints where more subtle and lighter almost pastel in colour, still with lots of texture and a really hazy fuzzy appearance.

with cardboard in situe

i like the copper green shade of this and some really nice texture but the composition could be better and some of the print very faded, would be better with a more even , heaver print in the centre

really like the variety of colour in this one , achieved with a combination of layering of old paint and intuitively dabbing on coloured ink. composition is messy, would benefit from multiple layers applied separately to give definition

A strong print, composition is better and a few subtle colours coming through add a sense of light and depth

the simple row of house style composition is effective, these boxes had been used a few times so a nice build up of paint and texture underneath while I. purposefully added different colours to each box to create illusion of different buildings, there's a softness and warmth to the print that I really like. colour the colour reminds me of summer sunlight against a building

I liked this composition a lot so made a variety of prints from it, experimenting with colour build up and textures

Simple in colour with some really nice heavy texture and definition in the creases of the boxes

Really thick texture of ink with the lighter colour peeking through like peeling paint. really like this effect

Close up detail of texture and colour, reminds me of something maritime , a costal town, weatherd by the sea,

another close up. I only had blue paints mixed on my pallet so this red colour peeping through must have bled from the original image on the box. The beauty of print experiments are these lovely accidental details

detail, using lots of pressure to lift the last layers of ink after many prints, these are my favorite results as the are so rich in texture and subtle colour changes. so excited by the effects, looks weathers and layered and organic like moss growing over bricks or bacteria multiplying under a microscope

The textured dots on this print from the brail marks on a box of paracetamol

 

In this composition I cut some of the boxes to make them symmetrical and was more purposefully trying to create a street scape, actually doesn't work as well as the first row of houses composition, its too much like it and too simplistic, I like better when you can see the boxes in full and the way they repeat top to bottom making an impression of a reflection in water. this composition looses the  imagination of those thing