Final Print Making

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October 7, 2016

In our current unit named "What a Relief!", we have gone step by step to develop our skills in art. For example, we completed a pre-instruction drawing that led us to see what state we were at that time, and to see how we need to improve for future tasks. This led us to creating and learning about how different tones are used in art, and how to make something two dimensional look three dimensional. We then began to learn about print making, so that we could create one of our own, and to create one final print that we were satisfied with. This is where I have reached, as I have developed my skills to create my final summative print.

All the activities and tasks we did before created a big impact on my final summative print, because I had a better understanding of the techniques and skills needed to create my lino print.

The process of creating our lino print started with finding a picture of ourselves that we wanted to represent in our print. I then went ahead and downloaded an app on my phone where I edited my chosen photo. The filter that I used showed me what parts of my photo stayed white and which should remain black. This made is easy for me to see where I should make the cuts in my lino. I then printed the edited photo out where we turned it over and covered the back with graphite. The reason we did this was to trace our photo onto the lino as when we put our image over our lino and trace our face with a pencil, the graphite would be printed onto the lino. This may have seemed as cheating, however, the lino is a rubbery material that is very hard to erase off. If you make a mistake and attempt to rubber it off, a faint line still remains that could confuse you. I then began to cut out parts on my lino. This was where our knowledge of tone and shading came into place. I cut out parts and left some parts to show the light and dark places on my lino. This was a bit of a challenge since we had to show shading by using only black and white. When I was happy with my cut out, I then went through and printed my lino cut out. After a few tries I got it right and finished creating my final summative lino print.

Making comparisons:

The difference between my pre-instruction drawing and my gauge process is that I did not have any knowledge of tone and shading. This would've helped with representing realism in my pre-instruction drawing. However, in this final print I have understood the difference between tone and shading and where to use it. Personally I think this express the idea of a notion of talent because to me, talent is something that you can accomplish by being motivated and developing your skills. At first, I did not have any knowledge of tone and shading, however, as we completed different activities, I was able to develop my skills to produce something that I am very proud of. Talent doesn't necessarily have to mean that you were born with a gift, it is rather something that you have developed and are confident in.

The Reverse Nature of Printmaking:

One of the amazing and interesting aspects of printmaking is the reverse nature of printmaking. This express the idea of how in printmaking when we draw out our image on our lino, cut it out and then print it, it becomes a reverse image; a mirror image of the original. As well, we take out the white rather than the black. This makes printmaking so abstract and unusual in art. We usually never create a mirror image in art or we usually draw the black parts rather than the white. Personally, this makes printmaking a different and interesting technique used in art that I will use in the future.