Gelatin Prints

Giovanni 6 October, 2018

I created this drawing by expanding a gelatin print and making my own background. I filled in the negative space of the drawing with a swampy background, as if the leaves are resting on the surface of the swamp. The positive space is already occupied by the ink leaves made by the gelatin mold. Negative space is the space that is not occupied by the object. Such as the swamp background of my picture. Positive space is the space that the objects, the leaves, are occupying. This drawing was created when we made a gelatin print. A gelatin print is made when a piece of synthetic gelatin is placed on top of a pane of glass and spread with ink. An object is placed on top and a piece of paper goes on top of the object. When the paper is taken off of the gelatin a print is made on the piece of paper.

To fill in the negative space I had started to think of the leaves laying on top of a body of water. I used graphite to make the water design and the animals living in the water. After drawing everything out with a pencil, I went back and outlined everything with a fine-tip pen. I also drew outside the border, made the leaves look whole and extended the snake from the border of the print. This makes the drawing seem to pop out of the drawing a bit, or at least open up the scene a bit more.

This was an interesting project to do because there was literally no limit to what I could do; I could draw anything in the negative space. This opened up so many ideas to me, but I picked a background that had to do with water because I find water to be such an interesting thing to draw. If I had more time in making this drawing/print, I would try to make the water seem more realistic and add more life to the drawing. I hope to become more experienced in drawing water and would love to try a project like this again.