Glued to your Roots, literally.

Acrylic lift- photograph shot with a Canon Rebel T2i with an 18-55 mm lens, with an aperture of f9 and a shutter speed of 1/80 seconds.

For this assignment, our task as a class was to create three different types of media incorporating an interesting and meaningful photograph you took. For the first one, I did an acrylic lift of a picture of a tree's branches (taken from the bottom, under them) with a bit of an eclectic and quaint building at the top. I took this photograph while in the beautiful, downtown Stratford, Ontario, a very musical and artistic town. What intrigued me about this photo and setting is the symbolism and beauty of the point of view. In my mind, I imagined being the roots of the tree, taking it from their perspective. The roots of the tree are significant because they represent the strong and pure base. With the quaint building at the top, which shows the rich history and culture of Stratford, it all ties together the notion of sticking to your roots, or your people, or heritage, etc.

I chose to do an acrylic lift for this photograph because I imagined the way the branches would contrast with the light sky background, which would create a very interesting effect. In order to make an acrylic lift, there are a few required steps to do prior in order to get there. First, you choose a photograph of yours that you feel would be good for an acrylic lift, and then you print it using a laser printer. From there, you duct tape the paper down to a wooden board, start applying relatively thick layers of glue over top of the picture, and then making sure it's dry before apply the next coat. Just to be safe, I did nearly thirty layers, when really fifteen would have been sufficient. Once I had the layers and they were dry, I soaked it in water and proceeded the vigorous duty of rubbing off all the paper on the one side of the acrylic lift. Once all the paper is gone, all you have left is the multiple layers of acrylic with your image on it. It is a very unique and fun process, and I enjoyed it very much, with an end product I can be proud of.