Silvana Robinson
About My Art
My passion is photography and art. I love portrait photography, landscape and images from life from animals to flowers. My Artwork is also drawn from photography when I attempt to recreate the images with pastels or watercolour.
I have spent the last couple of years developing and printing black and white film in a dark room. Now I no longer have access to doing my own printing I am reluctant to change to Digital completely so have gone down the path of creating images that are different from a conventional photograph. I still however include images in my portfolio that can be printed as a normal photograph.
My Artwork with alternative photography begins with a camera containing slide film. After processing the slide film is then mounted and placed inside a Vivitar slide printer to capture the image on Polaroid film. The emulsion or “image” from the Polaroid film is transferred onto watercolour paper ; the two methods I use to make images are shown below.
Polaroid transfer
Prior to exposure a piece of watercolour paper is soaked in hot water for about a minute, taken out of the water and the excess water removed. This will facilitate transfer of the image, as it will not dry out. A chosen colour slide is put into a vivitar scanner and exposed onto a Polaroid film. This is then taken out of the scanner through rollers, which presses the developing solution onto the image. The Polaroid is then peeled apart after 12 seconds and placed face down onto the watercolour paper and gently rolled with a roller. After about a minute and a half the Polaroid back is lifted off the paper leaving a transfer behind.
Polaroid lift
A chosen colour slide is put into a vivitar scanner and exposed onto a Polaroid film. This is then taken out of the scanner through rollers, which presses the developing solution onto the image. The Polaroid is then left for about 60 seconds and then peeled apart showing a Polaroid image similar to the one on the slide but not quite as colourful as a slide is a first generation image. The Polaroid film is then left 24 hours to dry thoroughly prior to the lift. When ready to lift the Polaroid is soaked in very hot water until it starts to bubble. A brush is then used to push the emulsion away from the backing paper and then the floating emulsion is transferred to another bowl of warm water before being transferred onto watercolour paper. The image at this stage can be manipulated into different shapes as desired. The image is then left to dry.
The beauty of the polaroid lift is that it can be transferred to other mediums beside watercolour paper and can look great on tiles that bring out a rustic quality and texture to the image.
Take a look at...
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My biography