Today's Class- Today's topic was printmaking, the collective name for mediums that involve artworks derived from a previously made fixed matrix, resulting in identical copies. I showed examples in both slide form and in actual prints of carved relief (woodcut, linoleum), metal plates (etching, engraving), stone processes (lithography). I had no examples to show of silkscreen, which uses a stencil on fabric mesh. The method that we will be using for an exercise in this class is collagraph, where a collage of materials is built up on a surface, which we will print as a relief print in a future class.
How to make this up- There are many ways and materials that can be used to create a collagraph plate, but the one we employed used cardboard and found objects to build a printing surface that will be used in a future project. Everyone was given a flat piece of cardboard, the large panel from a cereal or cracker box. For materials I had bags of scrounged material discarded by our school's interior design department, though students may provide additional materials later. Students could use scissors to cut the materials to various sizes and shapes, and white glue was use to glue them to the cardboard plates. Later when dried, the plates will be used by students to print collagraphs.
Two rules for this assignment- at least 8 different textures must be used in the final print, and the image must be something recognizable to a typical viewer. I showed physical examples of student prints from previous semesters and the plates that made them. Here are additional examples:
Some things to be noted- the color of the objects used to make the collagraph plate have no effect on the resuting print, which will be made with black relief ink in a few weeks. Also the print is a mirror image of the plate- everything is reversed. Not an issue for pictures, but if you decide to use letters or numbers in your print, they will have to be backwards on your plate to print correctly in the resulting print.
The collagraphs will be printed with black water based relief ink in two weeks during class, and color may be added to the final print with watercolors or pastels (as in the last one above) or with collaged materials. But we'll talk about that again when we get to that point.
This is a portfolio exercise, and the resulting art will be part of your portfolio grade for the class.
Homework- The finished collagraph plate will be printed in class on April 12, 2019, so you have until that day to finish it or make changes to what you have. Some students have their plates ready to go after today's class, while others will be adding additional materials, and those who missed class will have to do the whole thing on their own, but this is within the capabilities of all students. If you have questions about materials or the process, ask me in class next week.
Those who did not turn in a rough draft of the museum assignment today (when they were due) should complete it and get it to me as soon as possible. Longer delays will result in more points lost, and until I review your first draft, I can't give you notes on what you need to make you best possible version of the final museum paper, due the last day of class and worth 20% of the final class grade.
For next class 4/5/19- We will start the first individually graded art project of the semester (not portfolio), which will involve your pastels (from your list of class materials). This is a multi-week project so you will need the same materials the following week as well. Bring your 18"x 24" pad of paper, pencil and eraser, and your set of color pastels, which can either be oil or chalk based. Both are messy.
