PRINTMAKING: Fish Six

animation, Art, experimental, Film, printmaking May 9, 2023

This is the final in a series of six posts documenting the production of the experimental prints that I created using woodblock printmaking techniques and their use for both gallery exhibition as art prints and also as animation frames in my experimental animated film Toxic Fish (see the photos below). The fish in this post is the kohada. Its static shape on the woodblock and in the film frame contrasts with the simulated flooding of coloured toxins from commercial pollution which are overlaid around it and which eventually poison the fish. Variations in the volume of ink applied to the block plus the choice of hue produced a range of similar but different outcomes that, when edited in sequence, contributed to the creation of the illusion of movement. At most times the associated movement of both fish and toxins dramatically and frantically appear to twitch and jump all over the frame. The action looks frenetic. That effect is reinforced by the percussive soundtrack. The film was selected and screened at CINANIMA, the Animation Festival in Esphino, Portugal, and at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney, as well as at the Big Day Out rock festival in Sydney (see certificate and photo on a previous post: PRINTMAKING: Fish Four).

A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for gallery exhibition and as a frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill. (Print of image for animation, dark blue ink over black base shape of fish with blue and green ink striped overlay and surrounds, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.)
A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for gallery exhibition and as a frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill.(Print of image for animation, grey ink over black shape of fish with grey ink striped overlay and surrounds, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.)
A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for gallery exhibition and as a frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill.(Print of image for animation, orange ink basic body shape of fish with blue and green ink striped and smudged overlay and surrounds, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.)
A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for gallery exhibition and as a frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill. (Print of image for animation, overinked yellow and grey ink over shape of fish with pink and grey ink smudged surrounds, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.) This print, plus the three others that follow in this post, show levels of excessive saturation of ink in the main body of the fish, especially when compared with the preceding three prints in this post. This is a deliberate, expressive intent in the printmaking of these particular prints.
A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for gallery exhibition and as a frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill. (Print of image for animation, red and green ink smudged overlay over black shape of fish with yellow and grey surrounds, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.)
A woodblock print with overloaded, hand-coloured blue ink blotches for gallery exhibition and as a single frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill. The print of the fish for the animation has overloaded blotches of blue and grey ink smudged overlaid onto the basic shape of fish with yellow and grey ink surrounds, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.)
A woodblock print with overlaid hand-colouring for gallery exhibition and as a frame in my animated film Toxic Fish-©1990 Michael Hill. The print of the fish for animation has overloaded blotch of green ink over the outline shape of the fish with surrounding pink and grey ink smudges and brush strokes, for use as single and double frame sequence of the animation at 24 f.p.s.). Imagine seeing all seven of the above frames within a single second of the film…it’s a quite frantic movement of colour, shape and positioning!

Sitting at the Oxberry animation film rostrum stand back in 1990, shooting the film, frame by frame, from the individual woodblock prints. I appear both happy and calm and pleased with the process despite the frantic impact that the film makes. I do listen to music while I work but I don’t recall what I was listening to that day.

A later grouping of one species of the fish for art gallery exhibition. Individual prints were torn and collaged into a school formation.

This post concludes my look at the Toxic Fish animation project, however, there will be further posts under the PRINTMAKING banner.

All photos and printmaking-© 1990 Michael Hill

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Creator and former Director of the Master of Animation course at the University of Technology, Sydney, Dr. Michael Hill has a Master's degree in animation and a PhD in comics studies, prompting his introduction on ABC Radio as “Doctor Comics”. A member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Comic Art, and former member of the Comics Grid Journal of Comics Scholarship and the Advisory Committee of the Q-Collection Comic Book Preservation Project, he has delivered public lectures on Comics, Anime and Manga and held academic directorships in Interdisciplinary Studies, Animation, Design and Visual Communication. Having donated his collection of research materials on Australian alternative comics to the National Library of Australia he is now active in the artistic domain, writing, drawing and printmaking, creating art postcards and prints and his own graphic novel Blotting Paper: The Recollected Graphical Impressions of Doctor Comics.

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