"THOUGHTS"
Tittle:"THOUGHTS"
Medium:Block-Print Completion: September 2021 Exhibition text
The main idea of my work was to show what some people feel when there is too much on their heads. They feel like their world is about to explode. This artwork was influenced by the artist called, Rene Magritte. Especially looking at her artwork called, The Son of Man. The objects used where purchased but the work was self made. |
Inspiration:
The artist that inspired this work is called Rene Magritte. The specific artwork used to do this work is called The Son of Man. Rene Magritte was a Belgian-born artist who is well known for his surrealism artwork. Surrealism is the juxtaposition of distant realities to activate the unconscious mind through the imagery. The Son of Man: The Son of Man, was a painting by Rene Magritte and this art was a self portrait. It shows Rene who is in a nice suit and bowl hat, but in front of him, just floating is a green apple. When I looked at this picture, I thought that the apple was a way to show the audience that people look at you but do not really look at you, they just see what you want them to see. I thought this was a clever thought since in a way we all are hiding our true self when meeting new people or just in general. This inspired my work a lot since the idea behind Rene's work looked like a great idea to me.I used what I've seen in Rene's art The Son of Man and added my own ideas to it therefore creating my artwork. I thought I could do kind of the same but instead of hiding your personality, I was going to make my characters feelings explode. T |
Planning
For the planning process, I was thinking of making a work of art that resembled the global issue of global warming and the effects of it on the planet and on animals. I was focusing on making a perfect sketch which made me loose track of time. Due to me wasting time and not liking any of my sketches, I thought of how I felt. I felt like as if my head was about to explode due to work, school, etc. So that is what I went with, my sketch was really inspired by The Son of Man created by Rene Magritte. Instead of an apple as the form of surrealism I added an exploding world, resembling all the stress that had bottled up inside the mans head.
Process
The process was not as difficult but took quite some time. First we had to do at least 3 sketches of different things we would wanna carve and make the block print. We had to make sure that this would fit into the block we where going to carve into.For this step we just used the sketch paper and pencil. After that we chose the sketch we liked the most and we flipped the drawing and started shading all the back of the sketch with pencil. After you where done, you chose what position you wanted the drawing to be and you used tape to keep it in place so it would not move when you are tracing it into the printing plate. Once you did this, you started tracing the drawing so the drawing passed into the printing plate.
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After passing the drawing into the printing plate, you used carving tools to carve into the plate/block, keeping in mind that the carved parts would be the ones that would stay white and have to ink on them. You had to pay really close attention to how thin or how thick you wanted the craved line to be. This was the step that took most of the time since you had to be very careful where you where carving into. If you were not careful, you might carve something you did not want to carve.
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Once you where satisfied with how the carved image came out, you could now start preparing the ink and the other supplies you need to print the carved image into a piece of paper. For this step, you needed a tray, your print plate, a roller, ink,and a barren. First you grabbed enough ink or as much as you think you needed,and placed it into the tray. Once it was in the tray, with the roller you started spreading the ink out until it was thin or until the roller only had enough ink(not too much but not too little ink in the roller).After you thought the ink was enough, you grabbed your print plate and with the roller with ink, you started rolling putting ink in the plate, you had to be careful not too add no much as it would cover some carves, or if added too little the ink would not pass into the paper after. Once you thought there was enough ink, you gabbed a white piece of paper and placed it on top of the print plate. You had to try and make it land in the middle and not slide anywhere. Once it was on top of the print plate, you grabbed the barren and moved it over the paper so the ink from the plate would stick as much as possible. You had to use a little bit of pressure and once you where satisfied, you would peel the paper out of the plate and check if the goal desired was made. If the print came out bad , you had to redo this step till your work was as you wanted.
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Experimentation
The sketching experimentation took more than I expected,I took a long time experimenting on my sketches and this was something that had to be done fast. But at the end I was able to choose the sketch I would carve. As I finished carving, my thoughts about using ink and printing the picture into the blank piece of paper where that I thought it was going to be really easy. It turns out it was way harder than how it looks. The first couple prints that I did had either way too little or too much ink on the roller used to cover the carved image. If it had too much ink, it would cover the things I carved and those spaces would not come out clean or white. So I had to find the right amount of ink I needed to use for this project. After trying and having a couple messed up prints(7 or 8 prints) my finished artwork was finally achieved..
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Critique
Similarities and Differences
Some similarities in The Son Of Man and my artwork are that we both had a human in our work. Something else that is the same is that our artworks are simple but yet hold a meaning.
The differences in both is that, for The Son of Man, the art medium was, just a painting while my artwork was block printing. Another difference was the colors used. In The Son of Man, Rene used paints and different colors. In my artwork, we only used ink which was black ink and the carves made my artwork have some white implemented into it.
REFLECTION
At the beginning of this project, I was thinking it would be pretty easy but it turned out it was not as easy as it looked. I learned a new way to do art which was by block printing so I refined my skills to block print and later on if I try block printing again, I would know what I am doing.The biggest challenge I had when making this art was the actual printing the carved drawing into paper, you had to measure the amount of ink correctly in order for the print to come out as you wanted it. If you where not careful, it would either come out with no ink at some parts where there was supposed to be ink at, or too much ink even at the spots you did not want ink. This project ties things done in the past as always we start with a sketch and you always learn a couple new tricks and things when creating new art. My favorite part was the satisfaction you got when the print came out as you wanted it to come out. What I did not like about the project was that it took me a lot of attempts to have my final work. I hope others view my work and see my point of view, of peoples minds just thinking about too much and then they "blow up" or just get really annoyed.
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Some similarities in The Son Of Man and my artwork are that we both had a human in our work. Something else that is the same is that our artworks are simple but yet hold a meaning.
The differences in both is that, for The Son of Man, the art medium was, just a painting while my artwork was block printing. Another difference was the colors used. In The Son of Man, Rene used paints and different colors. In my artwork, we only used ink which was black ink and the carves made my artwork have some white implemented into it.
REFLECTION
At the beginning of this project, I was thinking it would be pretty easy but it turned out it was not as easy as it looked. I learned a new way to do art which was by block printing so I refined my skills to block print and later on if I try block printing again, I would know what I am doing.The biggest challenge I had when making this art was the actual printing the carved drawing into paper, you had to measure the amount of ink correctly in order for the print to come out as you wanted it. If you where not careful, it would either come out with no ink at some parts where there was supposed to be ink at, or too much ink even at the spots you did not want ink. This project ties things done in the past as always we start with a sketch and you always learn a couple new tricks and things when creating new art. My favorite part was the satisfaction you got when the print came out as you wanted it to come out. What I did not like about the project was that it took me a lot of attempts to have my final work. I hope others view my work and see my point of view, of peoples minds just thinking about too much and then they "blow up" or just get really annoyed.
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ACT QUESTIONS
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The effect of my inspiration on my artwork is pretty noticeable in my artwork since its really similar to The Son of Man by Rene. The cause and effect relationship between my inspiration is that, as soon as you see The Son of Man, most of the time you start thinking about problems/things people hide or keep to themselves. This is what I tried to do to my artwork as well. I tried to tie it to problems people face in their minds.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Peoples metal health/feelings. This can make you feel and think in many different ways.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
My inspiration used paints to do their artwork which is a nice way to do art. I used ink and I think I wont be using this medium as much since i prefer color on my art.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
Feelings, sometimes its okay to let your feelings be seen or let them out. It makes you feel better after you let them out.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The way you use perspective can make you work look good and sometimes perspective is the most important part of an artwork.
Bibliography:
The Son of man-https://johngaber.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/art-analysis-critique-son-of-a-man/