4/17/20 Introduction to Art

The original plan for the next assignment was a multipart collagraph project. On your syllabus, this is listed on March 27th and April 17th, and you would complete it on your own as part of the semester portfolio. The process is creating a printmaking plate through collage, then applying black relief ink and printing in a traditional print process, and there are many options for doing that. Here's a student example of what we used to do those first two days, the original plate and the resulting print: (notice the mirror reversal effect and that the original colors of the plate have no effect on the black printing ink)

Then the school put more emphasis on projects involving texture and collage, and coloring the piece went from being an option to a requirement, by use of collage and/or hand coloring with pastels, watercolors, or whatever students found. This one below was done with highlighter markers, which added color without hiding the original texture captured by the printing ink.

Unfortunately, most of the materials and all of the tools and process knowledge came from me (I am a printmaker by training and practice) and we are all banned from campus right now.  The process is not that difficult, and you can probably find out how somewhere on the internet, but the acquisition of materials and tools can be a challenge and expense, so it's gone for this semester and is replaced with a mixed media collage that can be done with things you have.


Today's Class- mixed media collage-

Last week everyone was sent by email a list of phrases created by random, nouns and modifying words picked out of hats and combined to make a new one.  Choose one for this project, save one for the 3D final.  The others are yours to do with whatever you want.  We don't need them here. 

How to make this up-

Take one of the new phrases you received in the email and use it as the subject of a new artwork, which will be a mixed media collage.  How you interpret that phrase is up to you- be as literal as you want to be, whatever the word(s) mean to you.  Here are some examples of the assignment done by past students, along with the random phrase that inspired it.  Shows approaches that students have taken with this assignment and what is possible and permitted.

dangerous roots

 city of zoo

 seeds of dreamers

 untamable deluge

melancholy moment

 give us the pragmatic

tangled men

As you can see, this assignment gives a lot of possibilities.  We do have a few rules to follow.

1) The final piece must address your topic in some way. As I wrote above, how you interpret is up to you.  

2) The piece must make use of some collaged materials (from newspapers, magazines, photocopies, internet, wherever you can find things), some drawn marks (can be pencil, charcoal, pens, markers, pastels, crayons or whatever you can find, images or abstract marks) and paint (your watercolors, or whatever equivalent you can find- shoe polish, nail polish, etc.)  In all cases, use these things to create images, fill backgrounds, add color, whatever makes sense to you, but all should be present in some form.

3) You may draw or paint on top of collaged images, either to alter the image or just as part of your overall design.

Flat lightweight things are easier to work with in the collage format.  We have a true 3D sculpture project scheduled for May.

This is a portfolio exercise, due as part of the semester portfolio by the end of the semester, though you can complete it any time.

Homework- Some of you are all caught up on the graded assignments, and we don't have another new one due until the end of the semester.  Some of you still owe things.  I'll post a list of what is in the semester portfolio next week, but if you can't wait until then, just go through the blog for this semester and see what we did.


For next class, Apr 24  The last portfolio exercise of the semester, an assignment in perspective drawing. You will need paper, pencil, and some kind of straight edge.