overview:Title: In the Sky
Size: 22.9 cm by 15.2 cm Medium: Ink on linoleum Completed: October 12, 2023 Exhibition Text:I wanted this piece to be a reflection of the silly things floating around in my head, a lot of fantastical things, a lot of things that are out of reach and abstract. I was inspired by some video games and animations for how the star looks. My main inspiration for the composition is Forrest Harrison Gerke, who also inspired my use of the star as the subject. The medium made this more approachable to get my themes across, water based ink on linoleum printed on paper.
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INSPIRATION:
My inspiration for this piece is Forrest Harrison Gerke. He is a visual artist, who works in block prints. His block prints use very thick lines and a very animated style. His use of line is really prevalent in his work, he has thick lines and a fairly simple composition in his prints. I plan on using this inspiration to influence my lines and make them really thick. I also want to use an animated style and try to use movement in my piece. I don’t want my composition to be too messy and cramped, and this can look natural with the thick lines and simple composition. The artist intent of the work is to express feelings, there are some portrait block prints that have a strong energy of the person being portrayed. In this artwork there is a subject with some stars or lights surrounding the subject. My first reaction to this artwork was a feeling of whimsy, I loved how the moon looks happy and serene and I immediately knew I wanted to use this for my inspiration, I was also really drawn to the stars in both pieces.
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There is a lot of use of shape in these pieces, there are circles and stars that contribute to the background looking fuller. There is also contrast in these pieces between the black and white, and although this is often a given in block prints, it looks very natural in these. The areas that are emphasized are the moon and the butterfly, in the background of these are shapes that are smaller than the moon or butterfly, that make for the main object in the piece to be emphasized. In the butterfly piece there is symmetry, and the antennas are used as an arrow pointing the eye down the rest of the piece and around to the background through the shape of the butterfly. In the moon piece the moon is quite pointy and the edges of the moon point down toward the face of the moon and then from the roundness the eye bounds to the background shapes. I think this art is probably for the artist, because he has a unique style and the art that he has available on his site does not seem to change throughout the site, his style remains the same. I notice in the moon piece a feeling of contentment displayed by the moon, it seems quite serene and the circles in the background add to this feeling. In the butterfly piece the emotions in the piece seem happy because of the stars in the background. There is a use of carving wood block print, which is a hard technique to be good at and accurately display what you want to. There is a skill that is still being developed for the artist as well, some of the lines are messy and the carved out parts are not always fully white.
Planning:
This drawing was a brief creation of my first ideas, I wanted something sort of animated that was based in reality but had a more abstract shape when drawn stylized. I wanted to have a lot going on and I kind of succeeded at that although I would go on to include more background details in the final drawings. I knew I liked this idea but I wanted to try some other things out before I decided. I would use a mixture of different tools to accurately represent the image. I didn't have to worry about changing the scale of the drawing because I traced the linoleum board onto drawing paper so I could move forward with just putting the image onto the linoleum when it was time, as I did with every drawing.
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My next drawing was a little less filled out, I had a general idea of wanting to draw a heart as the focal point for this drawing and still use a lot of contrast. If I did this drawing as a final idea I would carve out the white stripes and carve the center of the heart as well making the eyes stand out. If this was a final draft I would have put more effort into constructing the composition as well, but this drawing was just to get some ideas onto a page. I liked this idea and I could have made a final that I really loved but my other ideas felt better to me, and closer to the elements of my inspiration.
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This was my last planning drawing that I did before I moved onto a final drawing. I feel like I had a good idea initially but it got lost in what ended up on the page. I wish I would have spent more time developing this idea but in my head I knew what image I wanted to move forward with making a final for. I planned on making the background black and emphasizing the fruit details in white with black contrasts as well. I would have moved some of the fruits around to make them feel like a part of the composition more, I would have also changed the scale on some of them, the pineapple seems too small, but the apple seems to large. It is definitely something I could come back to at a later date.
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This was the first of my final drawings for the first planning drawing I did, it was the idea I liked the most for a variety of reasons, I liked the celestial theme, and the background was more interesting with the eyes pointing everywhere and the movement in the star. One thing I wanted to do differently was make the lines thicker when I went into the very last drawing I would do, I thought this would be more true to the inspiration. I added notes on the page to keep track of the things I would change or that I already changed. I wanted the star to be more centered on the page, and I wanted the lines of motion to be in white against the black background.
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This was the last drawing I did, and the one that I eventually would put onto my board to carve out. For this drawing I paired the lines of motion together and put them all around the board to fill out the board. I make some of the lines thicker and the eyes remained pointed in all directions. For this I planned on the background being black, so carving out the shapes in back. I wanted the star to be white on the print, so I would carve that whole area, and leave the eyes black. If the board still seemed too empty once I completed my first print I could go back and add more.
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Process
Stage One:
this is the original image I traced onto the linoleum did this by tracing the back of the drawing with lead, and it worked so much better than I was expecting, the lead was so much more opaque than I could have done by just using a pencil directly onto the linoleum. This gave me a very good starting point for the carving process as a had very strong lines to work from, one challenge from this was that it became hard to work with because the lines would get smudged the more my hands were on the board carving. But no matter what I could still see the lines fairly clearly. the second picture is what the back of the paper looked like after I traced the lines onto the linoleum. I thought it was cool to look at just how much lead was put onto the linoleum.
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Stage two:
the second stage was me learning how to use the materials, at first I thought that it would be much harder to carve the linoleum, but once I got used to it it became much easier. I made some mistakes in this stage, I made a few lines longer than they were supposed to be, but eventually once I printed it out, my mistakes weren't obvious. on the right there is a picture of some of my first carvings, I started with a rounded bit on the carving tool. I continued to use this tool on the lines of movement. I think this was a strong start to the carving process and definitely set me up for success later on.
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Stage Three:
This stage I took the finished drawing board, I also figured out that there was not enough in the background that was filling the composition. Even though this would stray further from my inspiration this is what I wanted for my piece. On the left is the picture where I used marker (which got all over my fingers) to map out where I wanted the hearts on the board. I did this for these designs and not for other extra details because I wanted to have something to go off of because hearts were a harder shape to carve than the lines I did later on. The first picture on the right was me half-way through carving the hearts, along the way I started to add a few embellishments to fill out the canvas. The second picture on the right is the completed composition with the hearts, after I completed those I still felt like it was missing something but I wanted to print anyway so that I could get a feel for what it would look like on paper.
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Stage four:
This stage I printed, although this would not be my final I needed to learn the process. I started by gathering materials: ink, paper, an inking plate, and then a barren and a brayer. I put ink on the inking plate, and used the brayer to roll out the ink into an even coat and rolled it onto the linoleum. I put a piece of paper over top of the linoleum and used the barren to put the ink on the paper. I peeled back the paper and my print was reflected.
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It was slightly blotchier than I wanted it to be, this is a result of not enough ink and not rolling the brayer in enough directions to properly absorb the ink into the linoleum. I was pretty proud of my first attempt and it turned out better than I'd hoped in many ways. I used this attempt to carve out some more parts that felt uneven or jagged. I also used this to add more to my composition, I saw some empty parts, and filled them out later on after I rinsed the linoleum. I know also felt better in my technique of printing and that whole process and I knew I could do better next time.
Stage five:
this stage was all about my finishing the composition, although I would make small tweaks after this they would not be totally altering the piece. In this stage I did not mark wit pencil or marker what next steps I was going to take, I didn't feel the need to mark things out, because what I wanted to do was simple enough, and it would just take away the time that I needed to dedicate to making lines, I also knew that my skills were good enough at carving where I didn't need to, it would only annoy me and potentially mess me up later on. I was making less and less mistakes during these later stages, showing a vast improvement from the earlier stages.
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Stage six:
Stage six was all about printing and the printing process, I learned about how to properly roll out the ink on an inking plate and how much ink I should have on the plate, I also learned from doing this process for so long that the ink eventually started to dry and get thicker, so that made it harder to work with and I rinsed all my tools in the middle of my process to prevent everything from getting too thick. Although this was not a required part of my process, it made everything easier to work with. I created 5 prints in this round of printing and I didn't make one that I was happy enough with to make it my final, but I learned a lot through the process that I felt confident going into my next round of printing where I knew I would make one that I was satisfied with. I learned that I should not have a ton of ink on the inking plate in order to prevent thickness. I should roll the brayer in a lot of different directions so that there will be enough ink evenly applied. Finally when using the barren I need to apply a lot of pressure for an extended period of time to ensure that there is enough ink getting onto the paper.
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My final print was a long process to get to, the most time I spent on the process was this. This process was so repetitive and frustrating to get just right. I feel that eventually I got to learn that layering the ink in thin layers was beneficial to getting just the right amount of ink on the linoleum. If I were to do this again I would try getting the ink on the board in all different ways and see what worked best: using a lot of ink, using a little ink, layering the ink. And then take those ideas and use what works, but in the actual process I didn't do that at the beginning. The product is good enough I'm happy with it and I wonder in the future what I could do with the skills I learned from this piece and use it on a future block print. I also know that the final in not perfect but it has a lot of elements that the inspiration does as well, so I think the imperfection adds to the development of the meaning of the piece.
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Expirementation:
this is an example of how I carved out most of the larger shapes in the background, I used the smallest bit on the carving tool. I did this because this bit was the easiest to use for me, and it was easier to control without making mistakes. I went on to use this technique with many other small background details, and like with this example it worked out well. I used this technique especially with the hearts, because I was scared to mess up the shape of them. At first the idea seemed to be a little silly, it would take more time to complete it this way, but it worked. This tool also allowed me to focus on small details, it helped me to have a steady hand and really fix some of those earlier mistakes as well.
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This is a picture of the inside of the star. It was sort of a mistake to make it like this at first. This is where I started to carve the inside of the star after I carved the border. This sort of was a mistake after I carve this section I started carving straight up and down. Although this doesn't match I still think it's a valid way to carve I sort of wish I kept with this pattern to match because it's more interesting to look at than just straight up and down. It also matches some of the lines of motion.
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I went in and redid this circle and many others to make them rounder and slightly larger so that they could make a bigger impact on the composition. I feel as though this made a huge impact and showed my improvement in skill from the beginning to end of the project. All of the other examples of this were very similar. I even did this wit some of the stars and eyes too. It felt good to see a physical representation of the improvement of my skills. I didn't really try to make anything else on the board bigger other than these small circles. The other background objects that got bigger were unintentional in order to make some objects pointier. I learned a lot from doing this, making circles by carving is hard, the line you're carving has to be continuous in order to not make the circle jagged, it is a lot harder to make really small circles like I tried to, that just make bigger circles.
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this is similar to my other experimentation, I widened a circle. This was slightly different in the technique I used, it was not as important to be even for this example because the circle was bigger and it was only half of a circle. Looking at the difference in these images it is clear that my skills have developed very well. Doing this gave my faith that I could do similar things even if they seemed intimidating or challenging.
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Critique:
Similarities may include:
Differences may include:
- Both pieces use the same medium, linoleum block printing. As well as both using black ink. This is a pretty major part of the composition for both pieces, although I would have liked to experiment with different colored ink, but I thought sticking to the inspiration would be best.
- I think since this was my first time using this medium I spent more time on everything but especially the details, whereas someone like my artist who has experience doing this would maybe spend less time with this, because they have more experience with this and can sort of move through the steps without much trial and error, which I went though during this piece, as I did not stick exactly to my original drawing.
- Our subject matters are similar in the fact that they both include cosmic subject matters, although his is a moon and mine is a star. Along with the fact that they are both centered in the composition, being the singular object that is framed as the focal point.
- The movements in both pieces are somewhat messy, the lines are thick and the motions are quick. Both have background details that are a big part of the composition, and lines are a big part of the pieces.
Differences may include:
- The inspiration's piece is actually smaller in size than my piece, which could account for why my piece has smaller lines, or why the backgrounds are so different, because it is harder to work with a smaller board, it leaves less room for details.
- The background of the inspiration's piece contains less details in the background. My piece's background contains many more little details, however the inspirations piece has a much bigger subject making the background less relevant.
- Although both pieces utilize thick lines mine are smaller due to the tools I was using and how I drew the size of the details, so my details are smaller, but they have a greater importance in the composition, whereas the background details in the inspirations piece have little impact and are used to fill out details.
- The inspiration's subject does not have much interaction between the details in the background. My piece, however, has interaction with the background, they all exist in the same universe and the big star is being lifted and moved by the lines of motion in the background.
Reflection:
I feel that this process was very beneficial for me in many ways: I worked on my time-management skills, my carving skills, and my printing skills. I was able to acquire lots of other skills regarding block printing and I feel that if I did this again I would be able to work on things and do it a lot faster with more skills. I developed and gained more appreciation for things I've done in the past and saw how well I was able to work with that medium compared to some of the new struggles I encountered during this project I gained skills but I also struggled with making so many prints and the repetitiveness of the process. My inspiration was Forrest Harrison Gerke and I think a lot of the visuals in my piece connect to the visuals in that piece, and I think they build off of each other and compliment each other in different ways. My biggest challenge was the printing process, I struggled with having enough ink on the paper or too much ink on the paper and it was really hard to get to a final that I was happy with, and it was getting really frustrating for me at the end when I still wasn't happy with what I was producing. I have done block printing in the past but it was on wood and I was much younger, but otherwise I haven't done anything similar to that process. I would say it's similar to sculpting in that I was taking things away from the original material. My favorite part was carving, I liked having that control and taking things away to reveal my design I thought that was fun and easy enough to do. My least favorite part as I mentioned before was the printing process, it was very repetitive and really hard to get right and make a product that I was happy with. This process also revealed a lot of the mistakes I made and that was hard to deal with. I hope people view my work with the knowledge that this piece is a reflection of me in some ways and the things I think about. The cramped nature of the composition resembles the feelings I have sometimes about my life and how much I have going on all the time and it's sort of overwhelming in that way.
ACt Questions:
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
- The main way I identify this is through the large celestial subject and how simply yet exciting both pieces are.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- The approach of the artist is to create for personal expression or ideas or thoughts, this combined with what I wanted to express with themes of celestial images and things sort of out of this world, made it easier to see how approachable that was.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- I discovered generalizations were made about people and figures, they were simplified into a form that fit the inspiration's aesthetic.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
- My theme was to create something that fit finding happiness in the simplicity of form.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
- I gathered that the kind of block prints I was looking for were harder to find, and thin line prints were more in style.
- The main way I identify this is through the large celestial subject and how simply yet exciting both pieces are.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- The approach of the artist is to create for personal expression or ideas or thoughts, this combined with what I wanted to express with themes of celestial images and things sort of out of this world, made it easier to see how approachable that was.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- I discovered generalizations were made about people and figures, they were simplified into a form that fit the inspiration's aesthetic.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
- My theme was to create something that fit finding happiness in the simplicity of form.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
- I gathered that the kind of block prints I was looking for were harder to find, and thin line prints were more in style.
Bibliography:
Gerke, Forrest Harrison. “Hand-Printed Block Prints.” Shop, Forrest Harrison Gerke - Artist, Musician and Writer in New York City., www.forrestgerke.com/shop?category=Hand-Printed%2BBlock%2BPrints. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.