Title: Coping
Size: 15 cm x 23 cm Medium: Linoleum carving block Completion: 9/23/21 Exhibition Text: This piece was a learning piece with me exploring the materials and techniques for ink block printing. My piece was created by carving a linoleum plate and stamping it on a piece of paper with ink. My inspiration for the piece was the artist Edvard Munch and his use of symbolism and line to express anxiety. The piece is supposed to communicate the anxiety, stress, and burden you feel trying to avoid your problems or issues in life and how it only ends up making them worse.
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Inspirations:
Artist of Inspiration: Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch is a Norwegian painter that lived for 1863-1944. He was mostly involved in Expressionism and Symbolism. His most well known work was The Scream which is now iconic.
While looking through expression art I discovered the piece called The Vampire ll by Edvard Munch a Norwegian artist. The Vampire ll is actually not the true title of this work it Edvard Munch called it Love and Pain and the name Vampire was a later interpretation. The drawing really stood out to me. After that I looked up other works by that artist and found his other work like Despair and Scream. |
Planning :
When I first started on this piece I was completely lost so I went over different themes and directions I could take it so I started with research. My first idea was dreams. There was a dream I had once where I was running away from a swarm of insects. Then I wonder if there was any deeper meaning. I looked it up and most of the time when you have a dream about running away from something or getting chased whether its a figure or animal it mostly means your avoiding something in your life. So that is the idea for most of my thumbnails. In almost all of the thumbnails and drawings the figure is not facing towards the viewer or is not showing their face clearly. It's supposed to be the figure not facing the issues in their life. Now my theme became more man vs self in a sense because most of the time by avoiding the issue it makes the problem worse.
I was going through different ideas like to add hands also what was the issue so I took a more abstract approach with the issue not appearing as a thing but a mass of swirling issues/ emotion/ anxiety. I made the mass with wavy lines in order to simulate uneasiness like in The Scream. I am not sure how well I accomplished this and looking back I could have made the issue and topic more specific. I also in some of the thumbnails I made I attached the swirls back to the person I also covered the feel with this mass. I wanted to symbolize two things: first that most of the issue connects back to the figure and also that although they try they can't avoid their problem. With the piece I wanted to invoke a feeling of dread or suffocating tone. This last page I traced the lino block to get the dimensions for the drawing. I choose the element for the thumbnails I made into one. I plan to use this to transfer drawing to the linoleum block to start carving. I plan to start carving and then do adjustments along the way.
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Process:
The first thing I did was transfer the sketch in my journal to the linoleum block. I used graphite and covered the back of the drawing, and then placed it on top of the linoleum plate. I traced over the lines on the top, and I ended up with the transferred product. I started to carve and at this stage I changed a few things. I changed the number of lines there were mostly because I started to realize how hard it was to make curve lines that don't look wonky. I made the lines on the person and near the person thick. |
Last step was the printing which to put it in simply was a bit frustrating. On the photo on the left the bottom two papers were my first attempt at making an ink block print. I asked someone and apparently I was talking too long in applying the ink to the lino black to the paper. I also suspect that I was rolling the ink too far on the tray, before putting it with the barren on the block, because of this I suspect I was not putting enough ink. So I washed off the block, and tried again this time going a bit faster and adding more ink and after more attempts it gradually got better. In between this I took some time to add some more details.
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The picture to the right was my second day of working on printing. I altered the block before starting adding the straight vertical line. I started printing and I was doing way better than yesterday. Though half way through being on a roll with these good prints I realize that I wanted to add more vertical lines. I went back and changed that and made more prints. Looking back, the prints I made before deciding to go back and add more lines were more crisp. After all this I ended up with 19 prints of different stages of prints. Only three are being kept, so I made a lot of leftover prints.
Experimental:
After I started carving is when I mostly started experimenting. I started caving but I realized that I had a lot of lines and it might not be a good idea to carve all the lines so instead I did only a few key lines on the block and worked from there. I also experimented with making the painting the block a black color. During the process of trying to print the block onto the paper I learned a few things about the ink and getting clearer print. The two in the front that are the most faded were my first attempt at trying to print out my drawing. Not only did I take too long applying the ink, I didn't have enough on my barren. So I started all over. I washed the plate and started all over again and got three better prints. I also experimented with making the lines thicker on the block and removing some sections on the block to add more contrast. One of the last things I did to experiment was adding some straight lines with varying thickness to the background.I took inspiration from Vampire ll this to fill up some of the empty space. Looking back has a resemblance to rain.
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Critique:
Similarities-
-There is emphasis on the figure in my work just like Munch's work the Vampire ll and The Scream. Another similarity is that they are both monochrome or lack color. Since the color ink other than the ink I used was black and the paper was white it ended up monochrome like the Vampire.
-Another similarity the use of line as texture in the Vampire he uses the lines to show the texture of the hair and to show shadows, similar to my use of lines to give texture to the background.
-There is emphasis on the figure in my work just like Munch's work the Vampire ll and The Scream. Another similarity is that they are both monochrome or lack color. Since the color ink other than the ink I used was black and the paper was white it ended up monochrome like the Vampire.
-Another similarity the use of line as texture in the Vampire he uses the lines to show the texture of the hair and to show shadows, similar to my use of lines to give texture to the background.
Differences-
-The first difference is the different materials Munch's work were painting and drawing while this work was made using a linoleum block and ink. There are also a few differences in lines.
-The different process also makes it so that multiple copies of the same work can be made while other works like Munches are one of a kind.
-Another is the
-The first difference is the different materials Munch's work were painting and drawing while this work was made using a linoleum block and ink. There are also a few differences in lines.
-The different process also makes it so that multiple copies of the same work can be made while other works like Munches are one of a kind.
-Another is the
Reflection:
I started off shaky on this project but thought the project I developed a better understanding of what I needed to do. What inspired me to create this project was mostly a dream I had earlier which has now turned into a project. Although there were challenges, mostly the printing on paper. I put on too little ink or didn't put it on fast enough. Once or twice I put too much ink. I got ink smudges on the paper and almost all my prints were crooked, but I think I got the hang of it. When it comes to my favorite part it was the actual printing. This is mostly because I was able to explore the process of print because even though it was challenging I finally got to see the end product.
Connecting to Act:
- Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
- What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
- What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Citations:
- Munch, Edvard. The Scream.1893, The National Museum, 0194 Oslo, Norway
- Munch, Edvard. Vampire ll.1895,The Munch Museum, Tøyengata 53, 0578 Oslo, Norway
- Munch, Edvard. Despair, 1893-4, The Munch Museum, Tøyengata 53, 0578 Oslo, Norway