Experimental Process

Beginning experimentation, I found a bin covered with a thin sheet of ice. I broke the ice and piled it on sketch paper, then dropped ink onto the ice. 

If I could have stopped the process here, it would have been precisely what I’d hoped for, but I used far too much ice and ink, so I repeated my experiment with less of both.

Again, the paper was still far too wet. I realized this and attempted to take an imprint of the top with another piece of paper, but the imprint was very underwhelming.

            With the weather warming up dramatically the week following this experiment, I was forced to venture to my own freezer to continue experimentation with ice. I used dinner plates to recreate the thin sheet of ice that I’d found outside. With less ice, I decided that using smaller paper would be a more efficient process to perfect my marks. In addition to ink, I used dry pastel and vine charcoal. I decided I would try dry media both on the paper before placing the ice, and over the ice.
 
I found the same issue with all of my ice experiments: whether using wet or dry media with ice, or different types of paper, my interesting marks disappeared when the paper flooded. In one last attempt at organic lines using water, I poured stripes of water over Bristol paper, dusted vine charcoal over, and gently blotted the water away with a paper towel.

The result was my favorite of all of my experiments, but the pigment flaked easily off the paper.

            Discouraged by failing efforts, I turned to different media. I found that candle wax and ink created dramatic marks. Unfortunately, the size of my paper and fleeting time did not yield the results I hoped for, but I still gave it the effort that I could.


. I’m still determined, and refuse to call it quits on this assignment just yet!