Student work: Ramona Mason

Creative Arts level 1 student, Ramona Mason, has employed text, place and a personal perspective of her life in London to significant effect in the completion of her work on Printmaking 1. I spoke to Ramona about her prints, at the start of her creative arts journey, and wanted to share these with you now.

I started by asking Ramona what aspects of printmaking she enjoyed the most. There’s a clear interest in the physicality of print processes that is evident throughout her body of work. Ramona noted that she manages her dyspraxia as part of her technical engagement with tools and materials. These are not boundaries to the processes she has involved herself with, but subtle shifts in using materials like a soft cut lino or gel plate technique to achieve her desired results. An essential feature of Ramona’s work was her desire to use print as a process of re-working and change, a need to forgive the forward motion of printmaking through a retracing of steps should things go wrong, then be re-worked or absorbed back into the print.

What I enjoy about Ramona’s prints is her ability to evoke a sense of ‘place’, a key feature of studies on the creative arts course. The final work, titled ‘London Diamond’ uses place as part of the process of creating a combination print. Ramona told me that she was unsure about the openness of decision making that this unit gives you, especially towards the end. Ramona liked the parameters her other discipline Illustration gave her; she says it provided her with a structure to work within, something she learnt from and employed these techniques here. Themes of portraiture, textile design, graphics, text, Illustration are used at will but around a process of making and structure of thinking. Ramona lets me know that her desire to problem solve and asking herself the question of where she wants the work to go and how to get there, lies at the heart of her creative process.

There’s a clear link between Ramona’s two creative disciplines and the way she has used them to develop ideas. I asked Ramona what she felt she gained from level 1 now starting on level 2.  She learnt how to organise tasks, and her thinking enabled a better communication of ideas through a creative process, one that straddles many areas of interest. Vitally she feels she has established a way to present her work.

For me, Ramona’s prints are exciting in the way they take risks through the inventive use of techniques, and she is unafraid to bring together elements to form a cohesive whole, engaging with Ramona’s perspective of place.

All photographs copyright Ramona Mason 2020.

You can see more of Ramona’s body of printmaking work on her blog: https://ramonaocaprintmaking.tumblr.com