RELIEF - PRINTMAKING

I just wanted to make a quick post about Printmaking because I really am loving it and when I make art work via printmaking I have some urge to make it ethnic and personal in some way.

For those who don't know printmaking is old old old before every one's time form of print and art. Everyone has done at least one print in their life time: Your foot print and hand print on your birth certificates. That was your first print!

 

My class this year started with Relief printmaking on linoleum or wood and I decided to be over ambitious and use wood cause I loved the texture of it and I thought it would be much more rewarding carving into a wood block. So I went to Lowes and got some wood and got at it! That easy! JUST KIDDING! not easy at all! I spent days planning what my image content would be and what it would mean slowly developed as I carved into a practice block. My practice block you can see here to the side. So the top right image is after I finished carving it. In relief you carve away the whites of your image. Then The image below that is after I rolled some ink on my block. The the bottom image is the press that my block and paper go through. And the larger image on the left is the final product on expensive behind paper!

The idea came from my relationship and a drawing my roommate from freshman year made me. Her name is Jessica Reed and I expressed to her how my boyfriend called me a giraffe and I called him a turtle due to obvious resemblances lol. She does awesome cutesy animation drawing and drew for me an animated turtle and giraffe in love! (Sorry blogger won't let me rotate it)

 So it started with two drawings  on a piece of paper. Scanned into the computer and put on top of one another. Then I used illustrator to put in the shapes on the shell. Then I printed it on 11x17 inch paper. Afterwards, I used a chemical I can't think of the name right now and the press and transferred my laser print onto the wood so it would be ready for me to carve.

In love with that piece I wanted to do something to that effect but in a more abstract way.So for my final wood block I designed the background to be giraffe skin and turtle to be in the foreground representing my boyfriend. The idea is that the turtle is the leader and head of the relationship, like how God dictates marriage to be. The giraffe skin is a gradient decreasing in size in the direction that the turtle is headed. That represents me the woman guiding the man (the turtle) in the right direction. Together they function and proceed with confidence knowing that they support each other with wisdom and love. People in my class commented that the piece looks tribal which is what I was going for. (I like tribal you'll see more of that in my copper piece as well.) I also refrained from making an outline around the turtle because I wanted the textures I carved to distinguish between the turtle and the giraffe skin but at the same time they act as one unit so I embraced the idea of them almost blending in together. The final product was printed on paper and you can see how it turned out below! And by the way P is for Perry :)