Experiments in inkjet colour tests for printmaking

The motivation for this research is based on how artistsmix and print colour by traditional means (painting andprintmaking) and how these differ from colour picker tools,slider bars and methods developed for digital printing, andwhether it is possible to incorporate both? Artists have been expert at mixing colour for centuries, yet although the artist and designer has access to a wide range of digital imaging tools and technologies, that on first glance, are dedicated to the creation of colour mixtures, the resulting colours are often disappointing. It appears that hardware, software tools and methods for digital printing are not necessarily suited to the specific requirements of the artist. In fact, they are toogeneralised to obtain a high degree of quality and too inflexible to allow artists to obtain precision and predictability. Based on existing hardware and software, the paper suggests alternative approaches to custom colour ink mixing and printing. Through the development of alternative ink colours specifically mixed for inkjet printing the paper demonstrates specially designedcharts for printing and double printing of custom mixed inks

Paintingphotogdigital: From Hybridity to Synthesis in the Age of Medium Equivalence

This thesis questions whether it is possible to synthesise material-based painting, photography, and digitally created and manipulated imagery in single artworks. To answer this question, a practice-based research of experiments explores physically conjoining painting with photography and the digital in picture-making. The investigation tests painting in its relationship with the other mediums, which adds to the current debates around painting’s position in contemporary art practices including “painting in the expanded field.” Painting has always had a contested relationship with photography, with the older discipline adopting the newer medium’s visual languages whilst freeing itself from the constraints of representation. For nearly two hundred years, painting’s repositioning in relation to photography has constantly redefined the traditional medium’s meaning and ensured its validity as a practice is re-asserted. As new data-based technologies expand into the aesthetic consciousness, painting also now locates itself against the digital to continue this self-renewal. However, whilst painters site their medium against either photography or the digital, there is little in the current art discourse that engages material-based painting with photography and the digital in direct combination as a means of further interrogating two-dimensional image-making. It is surprising that in a post-medium age, where artists undertake heterogeneous modes of art-making, such practice is under-explored. Conjoining material-based painting with photography and the digital in artworks provides a means of testing painting against new technologies; foregrounding painting in this conjunction adds to understandings of that medium’s role in a digitally media-saturated age. Initial practice of creating hybrid painted-on-photographs leads to the question of whether it is possible to synthesise these mediums in single pictures. This raises further questions as to how synthesis might be achieved, what attempting synthesis reveals about painting’s nature, and why attempting synthesis is important to the contemporary visual arts dialogue? To answer these questions, practical research attempts to conjoin the mediums visually, physically, and methodologically. Jerrold Levinson’s and Joseph Yasser’s theories of hybridity and synthesis of art forms conceptually inform the practical application of physically combining the mediums in two-dimensional artworks. Richard Wollheim’s theory of “seeing-in” paintings and Ernst H. Gombrich’s theory of differentiated viewing of pictures are drawn on to analyse hybridised and synthesised viewing experiences of the conjoined pictures. Concepts of erasure in art are employed to critically inform the deconstruction of hierarchical oppositions of the mediums, set within a dialectical materialist framework. Relevant contemporary art practices that investigate relationships between painting, photography, and the digital are surveyed to contextualise the practice. The research begins to fill the gap in practices and the literature around investigations into the relationship of the three mediums together, which contributes to understanding painting’s ontological nature in the digital age

Shibusa: extracting beauty

Shibusa – Extracting Beauty celebrates a number of artistic endeavours: music, painting and the skill of making in general with particular reflection upon Japanese aesthetics. Composer, Monty Adkins and visual artist, Pip Dickens (through a Leverhulme Trust Award collaboration) investigate commonality and difference between the visual arts and music exploring aspects of rhythm, pattern, colour and vibration as well as outlining processes utilised to evolve new works within these practices. The hand-cut paper Katagami stencil: a beautiful utilitarian object once used to apply decoration on to Japanese kimonos, is used as a poignant symbol – the ‘hand-made machine’ - by Adkins and Dickens both within the production of paintings and sound compositions and as a thematic link throughout the book. The book reviews examples of a number of contemporary artists and craftspeople and their individual approaches to ‘making things well’. It explores the balance between hand skills and technology within a work’s production with particular reference to Richard Sennett’s review of material culture in The Craftsman. Shibusa – Extracting Beauty includes contributing essays by arts writer, Roy Exley, who examines convergence and crossover within the arts and an in-depth history, and review, of the kimono making industry by Kyoto designer, Makoto Mori

Gestural patterns: a new method of printed textile design using motion capture technology

The aim of this research is to develop a new method, Hybrid Printing System (HPS) to explore digital craft methods to create surface patterns for printed textile design. This novel method of creating ‘handcrafted’ prints is a result of the integration of two technologies such as motion-capture (MOCAP) and digital textile printing (DTP). The research towards such an innovation required a current, historical, contextual and experimental study of use of motion capture in Art &Design. The research contextualises the hand and its relationship to digital crafting methods in printed textile design, the digital medium and the process of audience participation in printed textile design to create a new conceptual framework balanced in practice and theory. The practical research then develops three new methods of motion capture such as, motion tracing, motion sensing and motion tracking to generate gestural motifs and gestural patterns. This thesis and the accompanying set of experimental work demonstrates that HPS culminates in developing new aesthetics through a new mode of creation in a new medium, which will impact the user, the designer and the product as a part of the cyclical process. HPS is an advancement of printed textile design, centred in active participation of its audience at the generative stage of design. This results in a shifting role of a designer and subverts the current model of printed textile design practice. HPS is a democratic design process where the participants design for themselves, have their own voice, which induces a sense of community, togetherness and harmony in the creative process

Colour coded

This 300 word publication to be published by the Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC) is a collection of the best papers from a 4-year European project that has considered colour from the perspective of both the arts and sciences.The notion of art and science and the crossovers between the two resulted in application and funding for cross disciplinary research to host a series of training events between 2006 and 2010 Marie Curie Conferences & Training Courses (SCF) Call Identifier: FP6-Mobility-4, Euros 532,363.80 CREATE – Colour Research for European Advanced Technology Employment. The research crossovers between the fields of art, science and technology was also a subject that was initiated through Bristol’s Festival if Ideas events in May 2009. The author coordinated and chaired an event during which the C.P Snow lecture “On Two Cultures’ (1959) was re-presented by Actor Simon Cook and then a lecture made by Raymond Tallis on the notion of the Polymath. The CREATE project has a worldwide impact for researchers, academics and scientists. Between January and October 2009, the site has received 221, 414 visits. The most popular route into the site is via the welcome page. The main groups of visitors originate in the UK (including Northern Ireland), Italy, France, Finland, Norway, Hungary, USA, Finland and Spain. A basic percentage breakdown of the traffic over ten months indicates: USA -15%; UK - 16%; Italy - 13%; France -12%; Hungary - 10%; Spain - 6%; Finland - 9%; Norway - 5%. The remaining approximate 14% of visitors are from other countries including Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany (approx 3%). A discussion group has been initiated by the author as part of the CREATE project to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between artists and scientists. http://createcolour.ning.com/group/artandscience www.create.uwe.ac.uk.Related papers to this research: A report on the CREATE Italian event: Colour in cultural heritage.C. Parraman, A. Rizzi, ‘Developing the CREATE network in Europe’, in Colour in Art, Design and Nature, Edinburgh, 24 October 2008.C. Parraman, “Mixing and describing colour”. CREATE (Training event 1), France, 2008

The development of multi-channel inkjet printing methodologies for fine art applications

This thesis contributes to the defence of the practitioner perspective as a means of undertaking problems addressed predominantly in the field of colour science. Whilst artists have been exploring the use of colour for centuries through their personal practice and education, the rise of industrialised printing processes has generated a shift in focus away from these creative pursuits and into the computational field of colour research. It is argued here that the disposition and knowledge generated by creative practice has significant value to offer developing technologies. While creative practice has limited influence in the development of colour printing, practitioners and users of technology actively engage with the process in ways that extend beyond its intended uses in order to overcome recognised shortcomings. Here consideration is given to this creative engagement as motivation to develop bespoke printing parameters that demonstrate the effects of colour mixing through methods alternative to standard workflows. The research is undertaken incorporating both qualitative and quantitative analysis, collecting data from visual assessments and by examining spectral measurements taken from printed output. Action research is employed to directly access and act upon the constant developments in the art and science disciplines related to inkjet printing, observing and engaging with current methods and techniques employed by practitioners and developers. This method of research has strongly informed the empirical testing that has formed this thesis’s contribution to fine art inkjet printing practice. The research follows a practitioner led approach to designing and testing alternative printing methods and is aimed at expanding the number of discernible colours an inkjet printer can reproduce. The application of this methodology is evidenced through demonstrative prints and a reproduction study undertaken at the National Gallery, London. The experimentation undertaken in partnership with the National Gallery has proven the ability to increase accuracy between colour measured from the original target and reproduction, beyond the capabilities of current inkjet printing workflows

Transforming shape: hybrid practice as group activity

Printed textile and garment design are generally taught and practised as separate disciplines. Integrated CAD software enables textile and clothing designers to envisage printed garments by assimilating graphic imagery with 2D garment shapes and 3D visualizations. Digital fabric printing can be employed to transpose print-filled garment shapes directly onto cloth. During a recently completed practice-led PhD (1998-2003), I researched the aesthetic design potential of combining new CAD technology with garment modelling methods to create new innovative printed textiles/garments. The merging of physical and screen-based making resulted in a hybrid 3D approach to the body, cloth and print referred to as the 'simultaneous design method'. In 2001 this hybrid practice provided the catalyst for a collaborative textile research project at the Nottingham Trent University, UK. The group included surface, shape and multimedia designers. The key group aim was to explore the transforming effects of computer-aided textile design through dialogues between two and three dimensions. In parallel with my own practice, print and embroidery were considered from a 3D starting-point through the relating of geometric cloth shapes to the form. Each designer took an idiosyncratic approach to the selection and integration of imagery with the shapes. The novel consideration of the final modelled textile at the start of the designing process influenced each designer in different ways, leading to a collection of contrasting, original outcomes that were displayed in the exhibition Transforming Shape (UK 2001, Denmark 2003). The exhibition demonstrated the design opportunities (and limitations) of new and existing technologies, specifically the relationship between innovative textile imagery and three-dimensional form. The designs illustrated the premise that surface designs can be engineered through different pattern shapes and that engineer-printed shapes transform the body

Transforming shape: a simultaneous approach to the body, cloth and print for garment and textile design (synthesising CAD with manual methods)

Printed textile and garment design are generally taught and practised as separate disciplines. Integrated CAD software enables textile and clothing designers to envisage printed garments by assimilating graphic imagery with 2D garment shapes, and 3D visualisations. Digital printing can be enlisted to transpose print-filled garment shapes directly onto cloth. This research challenges existing 2D practice by synthesising manual and CAD technologies, to explore the integration of print design and garment shape from a simultaneous, 3D perspective. This research has identified three fundamental archetypes of printed garment styles from Twentieth Century fashion: 'sculptural', 'architectural' and 'crossover'. The contrasting spatial characteristics and surface patterning inherent in these models provided tlýe theoretical and practical framework for the research. Design approaches such as'textile-led', 'garment-led'and 'the garment as canvas' highlighted the originality of the simultaneous design method, which embraces all of these concepts. This research recognises the body form as a positive influence within the printed textile and printed garment designing process, whereby modelled fabric shapes can be enlisted to determine mark making. The aim of the practice, to create printed garment designs from a 3D perspective, was facilitated by an original method of image capture, resulting in blueprinted toiles, or cyanoforms, that formed the basis of engineer-printed garments and textiles. Integrated CAD software provided the interface between manual modelling, design development and realisation, where draping software was employed to digitally craft 3D textiles. The practical and aesthetic characteristics of digital printing were tested through the printing of photographic-style, integrated garment prototypes. The design outcomes demonstrate that a simultaneous approach to the body, cloth and print can result in innovative textile vocabulary, that'plays a proactive role within the design equation, through its aesthetic integration with garment and form. The integration of print directly with the garment contour can result in a 3D orientated approach to printed garment design that is empathetic with the natural body shape

The Design of Dissent: Graphic Design for Socio-Political Engagement

Design engages with the political and expresses resistance to hegemonic institutions and ideologies when it employs disruptive visual communication. In a context of contemporary visual communication, images often lack a theoretical and practical framework to create inquiry and social change. Informed by activism, visual rhetoric, political theory, and design criticism, this thesis offers strategies and practices for socio-political engagement by melding these approaches into the discipline of graphic design. This thesis makes the claim that graphic designs relationship with the public interest is one that should not be undervalued. It studies the implications of perception of graphic design work as a means of social change to demonstrate the efficacy of visual communication. This thesis asks designers to evaluate the way we as communicators and citizens express desires, beliefs, and critiques, demonstrating how contestational design exists as socio-political action

Computer mediated colour fidelity and communication

Developments in technology have meant that computercontrolled imaging devices are becoming more powerful and more affordable. Despite their increasing prevalence, computer-aided design and desktop publishing software has failed to keep pace, leading to disappointing colour reproduction across different devices. Although there has been a recent drive to incorporate colour management functionality into modern computer systems, in general this is limited in scope and fails to properly consider the way in which colours are perceived. Furthermore, differences in viewing conditions or representation severely impede the communication of colour between groups of users. The approach proposed here is to provide WYSIWYG colour across a range of imaging devices through a combination of existing device characterisation and colour appearance modeling techniques. In addition, to further facilitate colour communication, various common colour notation systems are defined by a series of mathematical mappings. This enables both the implementation of computer-based colour atlases (which have a number of practical advantages over physical specifiers) and also the interrelation of colour represented in hitherto incompatible notations. Together with the proposed solution, details are given of a computer system which has been implemented. The system was used by textile designers for a real task. Prior to undertaking this work, designers were interviewed in order to ascertain where colour played an important role in their work and where it was found to be a problem. A summary of the findings of these interviews together with a survey of existing approaches to the problems of colour fidelity and communication in colour computer systems are also given. As background to this work, the topics of colour science and colour imaging are introduced