Printmaking

MEDIA: LINO BLOCK, CARVING TOOLS, CARBON PAPER, PRINTMAKING INK, PAPER, TRACING PAPER.


 I was actually very fascinated with the printmaking assignment we did.  Out of all the different medias we interacted with this semester, I personally enjoyed working with the linoleum blocks and carving them out by using a speedball cutter.  This came as a new way to express our skills in art and everything about this assignment was new.  In terms of the design process, we are allowed to take our imagination to another level by creating an image of our own.  We did this by taking a few pieces of tracing paper and transferring certain parts of a chosen image in order to create a unique type of subject to work with when carving out linoleum blocks.  I had a hard time deciding what design to create so I took the longest time in the design process.  After finally finalizing my design, the transfer process was a work in the park.  With the help of the provided carbon paper, I was able to easily transfer my image on to the linoleum block with ease.  The process of doing so had to be treated with extra care.  Carbon paper in art can either work with you or against you depending on how careful you are.  Despite the easy process, I treated the transfer with caution by using tape to hold down the tracing and carbon paper as slowly and carefully trace my image onto the linoleum block in order to complete the transferring process.  When cutting the block, I expected it to be rough and hard.  Little did I know, the only difficult thing about the cutting process is getting through all the tight areas of my image and actually avoiding any cuts from the speedball cutter.  The other things I have to think about is what areas have to be carved out in order to create that image in the printmaking process.  I felt like making some sort of stamped image where I have to pay attention in terms of positive and negative spaces.  All areas that are not carved out will be the areas that will show up in the printing process.  The carved areas in the other hand are the ones that will help bring out the image because the ink does not go through those areas during the inking process.  Using the printing ink and a speedball roller, we are able to apply the ink on to the carved linoleum block by rolling the ink on the created image and transferring the inked block on a couple of printing papers.  This process was actually exciting but suspenseful at the same time.  This process to me shows if we carved in our image the right way onto the block.  Fortunately, my image didn’t look as bad as I expected.  First try didn’t come out the way I wanted to due to the lack of ink.  As I printed out more and more copies, I begin to modify my block by carving certain areas and managing my ink applications each time.  Practice makes perfect and modifications helped out a lot with this assignment.  Personally for me, the design process, like I said, was the most difficult because deciding what image to create took a little time.  With days of debating, a design was finally created.