Marco Carofalo ART

Following on from my vacuum packed branches and rubble displayed in my silent crit. I wanted to further experiment with vacuum packing to see if I could create a print by inking sections of a tree branch. This could be viewed as a more traditional approach, with the introduction of ink and paper. It was mentioned at my crit if I had considered using ink in the vacuum bag to make an impression, therefore, it was something I wanted to try.  

Once the paper and inked tree branches were placed in the vacuum bag, the air was removed to have the surfaces interact with each other and make a print. 

It was very difficult to get a perfect print without having excess ink all over the paper. This was due to the process of placing the paper and then inked branches into the bag. The first print could be managed but would require a clean bag, subsequent prints with the same bag would still have leftover ink on the plastic and would transfer to the paper. This process would lend itself to making one-off prints or would require a new bag or the bag being washed and dried in between prints. 

I tested newsprint which worked well and soaked up the ink. Cartridge paper would not take the ink as well and required additional pressure form outside the bag(using my hands to press the plastic against the branch). A nice outcome with the prints was the sculptural qualities of the paper, where it had taken the form of the branch. The vacuuming process would wrap the paper around the object creating the three-dimensional effect.  I enjoyed the process of testing the vacuuming process and glad I tried this out following the silent crit. The overall look of the print had too much leftover ink following the previous print. The sculptural qualities of the paper related to the original concept of vacuum packing the tree branches that I displayed in my silent crit. These were intended as prints but to be displayed like objects and preferred this conceptual approach to printing.