Draft 1

I chose to copy an illustration by WRen_ using oil pastel monoprint. I was drawn to its loose lines and playful, dreamlike quality, which made me curious about the process of copying it through this medium.

To make the copy, I applied regular oil pastel to a sheet of paper. Looking at the reference illustration on my screen, I traced its lines with a thin pencil. Through the pressure of my drawing, the pigment transferred from the prepared paper onto the sheet underneath, forming the image.

Through this process, I began to see that monoprint does more than reproduce an existing image. It also translates aspects of the making process into the final print. Alongside elements of the original illustration, the print carries traces of my drawing gestures, the pressure I applied and the interaction between the materials. The image is not simply a pre-existing idea transferred onto paper through a tool. It takes shape through the interaction between my intention, my actions and the material response.

This led me to question how control is shared during image-making. How does the transfer process redistribute control between the maker and the material? To explore this further, I plan to develop a series of experiments with oil pastel monoprint, changing selected conditions of the transfer process and comparing the results. I want to investigate how these changes affect the relationship between my intentions, my actions and the final image.

Draft 2

— From Reproduction to Recording

I began by copying an illustration by WRen_ using oil pastel monoprint. I was attracted to its loose lines and playful, dreamlike quality. However, during the copying process, I realised that the final image could not be fully controlled. Differences in pressure, hand movement and material response created unexpected variations. Some lines appeared sharp, while others became blurred, broken or almost invisible.

This led me to ask: How does the transfer process redistribute control between the maker and the material?

To investigate this, I divided the process into three elements: the drawing tool, the oil pastel layer and the transfer paper. Keeping the receiving paper unchanged, I developed a series of experiments, changing these elements and comparing the results.

I found that finer drawing tools allowed me to produce more precise lines, while harder or uneven oil pastel layers interrupted the transfer, creating faded and fragmented marks. Different transfer papers also affected the image, sometimes making the original drawing almost unrecognisable.

Barbara Bolt’s The Magic Is in Handling (2010) helped me understand these experiments differently. Bolt argues that materials are not simply passive tools for realising an artist’s intentions. Through what she describes as material thinking, knowledge can emerge from the interaction between the maker, materials and processes. This made me reconsider my unexpected results, not simply as technical problems, but as opportunities to understand how the transfer process works.

For example, with heavily embossed paper, the transferred image became fragmented and almost unrecognisable, while the pressure marks remained particularly deep and clear. With pearlescent oil pastel, the effect was even more extreme: almost no pigment was transferred, leaving only visible indentations.

These experiments revealed two ways in which the process records my actions: pigment transfer, which produces visible coloured marks, and pressure indentation, which leaves physical impressions on the paper.

This led me to an unexpected realisation: apparent absence is not always absence.

A mark that seems to have disappeared in colour may still exist as a physical indentation. What I initially understood as a failure of reproduction could also be evidence of another form of recording.

Returning to Bolt’s discussion of material thinking, I began to see the final print not simply as an image, but as a record of interactions between intention, physical action and material response. Through iteration, my focus shifted from trying to control the image to understanding how the transfer process determines which traces of making become visible.

Reference

Bolt, B. (2019) ‘The magic is in handling’, in Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. (eds.) Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. London: I.B. Tauris.

From Material Thinking to Material Feeling

I began by copying an illustration by WRen_ using oil pastel monoprint. I applied oil pastel to paper and drew on its reverse, using pressure to transfer pigment onto another sheet. The results were unpredictable: lines appeared sharp, blurred, broken or faint. I could guide the image, but not fully control it. This led me to ask: How does the transfer process redistribute control between the maker and the material?

I conducted twelve experiments, varying the drawing tools, oil pastel layers and transfer papers while keeping the receiving paper unchanged. The prints differed in texture, clarity and recognisability.

Barbara Bolt’s The Magic Is in Handling (2019) helped me understand these variations through her concept of material thinking: knowledge emerging through working with materials rather than simply carrying out a predetermined idea. What first seemed like failed transfers revealed two ways the process records my actions: pigment transfer, leaving colour, and pressure indentation, leaving physical impressions. Even when pigment disappeared, indentations remained. Apparent absence is not always absence.

Although the twelve prints showed clear visual differences, I struggled to understand how these differences affected the viewer’s experience. I needed a source that could make their effects easier to recognise.

I established three criteria: the source should accommodate progressive loss, remain interpretable across successive versions, and allow less visible traces, such as indentations, to retain significance.

Music fulfilled all three criteria, offering a way to make these changes audible. I chose Happy Birthday, a melody familiar to my listeners, and used its sheet music as a fixed source.

I reused the same transfer matrix six times, then translated the resulting marks into piano sounds according to three rules: pigment became pitched notes, faint pigment became quieter notes accompanied by key-action sounds, and indentations became key-action sounds alone.

As pigment faded, the result was not simply quieter music. The pitched melody gradually gave way to predominantly unpitched mechanical sounds. The previously overlooked sounds of pressing the keys became the focus.

Listeners described the earlier versions as cheerful, gentle or sweet, but the later ones as strange, uncomfortable or aggressive. Unlike the illustration experiments, the sound translations made the emotional effects of material variation easier to recognise.

Building on Bolt’s material thinking, I began to consider what I might call material feeling: how material processes, through translation, can shape emotional experience. This distinction matters because it locates the significance of the process not only in what the maker knows, but in what the work makes others feel.

This raised another question: If an image loses its pigment but retains its indentations, is it still the same image? If a melody loses its pitches but retains its rhythm and the gestures of playing, is it still the same music?

When information is translated between media, who is responsible for the changes in its meaning and emotional impact?

Returning to my original question, Blauvelt’s (2013) discussion of distributed subjectivity in Conditional Design helped me reconsider where control operates. He argues that although a process may appear objective, it stems from subjective intentions, and that subjectivity is distributed throughout an open system rather than located solely in the maker. In my experiments, I established the intentions and translation rules; materials altered the traces; and audiences interpreted the results. Control was therefore not simply shared between maker and material, but distributed across maker, material, translation and audience.

Distributed control does not mean distributed responsibility disappears.

Reference

Blauvelt, A. (2013) ‘Ghost in the Machine: Distributing Subjectivity’, in Maurer, L. (ed.) Conditional Design Workbook. Amsterdam: Valiz, pp. iii–vi.

Bolt, B. (2019) ‘The magic is in the handling’, in Barrett, E. and Bolt, B. (eds.) Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 27–34.