Sunlight meets the trees
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Inspirations
My two biggest inspirations while doing this project were the sun from "nude bathing" by Josef Achmann For my first inspiration, I used the sun in the in nude bathing by Josef Achmann because I really liked how the sun looked with the white showing the light from the sun. Josef Achmann was one of many artist part of a movement called German Expressionism. Achmann was born in 1885 in Germany and died in 1958, living for a long 77 years. Achmann was 20 years old when German Expressionism started to pick up and become popular. German Expressionism affected Achmann's art in a huge way because he was surrounded by it, this lend him to making most of his art prints which was made popular by German Expressionism. German Expressionism was a huge art movement in the early 20th century. This art movement influenced many artists back then like Achmann and still influencing artists today. The biggest artists today that show signs of German Expressionism are Margaret Taylor Burroughs and Elizabeth Catlett. Planning I first started with three planning drawings, then started to narrow it down from there. I decided on the pine tree one because I feel it looked the best and it connected to my theme the best. I also chose this idea because of the mix of geometric and organic shapes. As seen in all three of my sketches I have the same sun in all of them because I found that inspiration and stuck with it. After I decided on my idea i dived deeper into the idea with making another sketch by changing some little things I didn't like. For example, I moved the right tree to the right so you can see when it meets the middle tree. I also put little notes for myself to look at when I'm craving my piece out. I did this to make my life easier and to explain my thinking by putting it on paper. An Example of this is on the right where I wrote "moving eyes up the artwork". I wrote that because I wanted to lead my viewers eyes up the artwork and to the main focus which is the sun. When my detailed sketch was complete, I decided to make a black and white sketch with a sharpie to make most represent what I wanted to do with my art piece. This is my black and white sketch to make it easier and to decide what i want to crave out and what not to crave out. In this step I decided to make the background in white to outline and the subjects in the piece as black to bring them attention. I plan to use my theme of the environment because that is what this piece is based around. In this piece I am trying to make the viewer think a little more about the environment by making this artwork. I plan to start my process by craving my piece out as a rough draft and put ink on that to see how that turns out. After that i plan to see what I can fix and do better. Then I will crave out and make changes to the things I want to fix. After that I will repeat this process until I am happy with my art piece. My theme is the environment and this piece goes right along with that because it is an artwork of trees and the sun which is the environment. I plan to use my theme by making something that represents it with no color. In this artwork I used my theme to try to make a warm piece with the sun even though there is no color. I am planning on making my After making my final sketch and making a plan to execute my artwork I decided I was ready to start craving my block print. Process Step 1 The first step of my project was to transfer my sketch onto my block print. I did this by covering the back of my sketch in graphite and then lined up my sketch with my block print. After I did that, I started to trace over my sketch to transfer it onto my block print. Step 2 The next step of my process was craving out the block print which was my favorite step but also the most time consuming step too. This was my favorite step because it was therapeutic to me. It also was fun for me to learn a new skill. It was time consuming because I had to take my time and work on everything slowly. It was important to take my time because if I messed up there was a good chance I couldn't change it back like with other projects. Step 3 My third and final step of my process is transferring my image from my block print itself onto the paper. I first started by putting the Speedball block printing ink on my ink tray with a puttee knife. After that I used my brayer to spread the ink on the ink tray. Then I rolled the brayer onto my my block print Critique There are many similarities and differences between my art piece and my inspirational piece. The biggest similar detail is the sun because I took it directly from Achmann's artwork and put it into my artwork. Another similar factor of these two pieces are that they are both in German Expressionism style Achmann's artwork being made when it was going on and mine being based off of the German Expressionism style. Other than those reasons these two pieces couldn't be much different from each other, where one is about bathing in a river nude and the other is about pine trees. |
Experimentation
Since I have never worked with block printing everything I did I was experimenting with it, that includes craving, putting ink on the block, printing, etc. I first started experimenting with craving into my block. I did this by first starting by barely craving into the block and then slowing craving more and more out of the block. Even though that extended the time to make the piece by a large amount, I feel it made the outcome a lot better than if I didn't do it. Another thing I experimented with was how to print, I did this once by putting the block on the paper instead of putting the paper on the block while transferring my image from the block to the paper. I did this because I was having trouble printing, so I was trying anything I could trying to get a good print, it didn't work and I went back to the old way. The photos on the left show how my prints came out when I was experimenting with printing and photos of me printing. |
Reflection
Overall, I feel like i wouldn't change that much because I feel like I changed everything as I was doing it, instead of not regarding it later on. I do feel like if I did this project again, I think it would turn out better because I know how to crave a lot better now then I did when I started when I started this project. Also if I did this project again I would start cutting deeper to begin with because I feel I spent most of this project cutting things deeper than I already had them which slowed me down by a large amount.
ACT Questions
- 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?
Bibliography
Helena E. Wright, M. 16. (2022, December 20). Block prints by African American Women Artists and friends: Margaret Taylor Burroughs and Elizabeth Catlett. National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/block-prints-african-american-artists
German expressionist woodcut Josef Achmann “nude bathing” 12" x 8.75". Worthpoint. (n.d.). https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/german-expressionist-woodcut-josef-1886166068