Printed Pictures: Layout and Composition

So after having a long period of struggling with composition and layout, and attempting to tie this in with the theme of my project; I had a sudden realisation that it didn't have to be a realistic theme. Considering that I really wanted my pieces to hold an element of the mystical and magical in response to the themes in the play, it was perfect to create work that didn't necessarily make sense. The people didn't have to be standing; they could just be floating heads. The moon didn't have to be at the top of the image; it could be in the centre. Simultaneously I was also investigating art of Shakespeare's time:

He was working in the theatre at the height of the renaissance movement, something that is reflected in Shakespeare’s plays. The renaissance movement did not necessarily reject the idea of God, but rather questioned humankind’s relationship to God – an idea that caused an unprecedented upheaval in the accepted social hierarchy. In fact, Shakespeare himself may have been Catholic. This focus on humanity created a new-found freedom for artists, writers and philosophers to be inquisitive about the world around them. Shakespeare was born towards the end of the renaissance period and was one of the first to bring the renaissance’s core values to the theatre.

Shakespeare Embraced the Renaissance in the Following Ways:

• Shakespeare updated the simplistic, two-dimensional writing style of pre-renaissance drama. He focused on creating “human” characters with psychologically complexity. Hamlet is perhaps the most famous example of this.
• The upheaval in the accepted social hierarchy allowed Shakespeare to explore the humanity of every character regardless of their social position. Even monarchs are given human emotions and are capable of making mistakes.
• Shakespeare utilized his knowledge of Greek and Roman classics when writing his plays. Before the renaissance, these texts had been suppressed by the Catholic Church.

Art - Against a backdrop of political stability and growing prosperity, the development of new technologies–including the printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and exploration of new continents–was accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature and especially art. The style of painting, sculpture and decorative arts identified with the Renaissance emerged in Italy in the late 14th century; it reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. In addition to its expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance art sought to capture the experience of the individual and the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

I started to think about the printing process and how I could involve the themes from the play like opposites, symmetry and contrast in my prints. I decided to research into renaissance patterns. I really love detail and it appeared to be a key characteristic in the renaissance patterns that I found. My research looking at these renaissance surface patterns really inspired my layout and composition in my own prints. I now started planning out my prints in a grid format so that I could create symmetry and parallels in the pieces. I decided to include a border of swirly patterns inspired by these renaissance patterns which helped to tie in my prints as part of a set. 

Using the grids really helped me to get a sense of direction within my pieces and after I decided this was how I was going to work I quickly came up with some ideas based on the motifs and symbols in the quotes I had carefully selected. 

Knowing that I was overwhelmed by information from A Midsummer Night's Dream and all of the Acts I decided that I definitely must cut down the amount of text I was relying on to inspire the individual texts. 
I separated the quotes into specific themes and motifs from the play and then it was a lot easier to link some together and separate others. In the end I chosen about 3 quotes per each print that I thought had similar symbolism or atmosphere. These inspired my prints and really helped to give direction to my work. 
Below are some images from my sketchbook of my initial print designs: