BLOCK PRINT
Planning
After hearing the demo on block print, the idea of using Photoshop for a template was immediately appealing to me. Before this idea I had some other abstract ideas, Like making a lyon as a symbol of power and relating it to Frida Khalo. However I felt that sticking to the basics would help in making the piece simple enough to be able to carve it out on the print. I was also thinking about using Rene Magritte and his cloud patterns, however I didnt do this because I felt it would look to simple, and I had already used Rene Magritte as an inspiration.
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Process
The process of making my block print was some what similar to the digital collage in that I needed to collect the necessary photos in order to create what I wanted. First I took a picture of myself being sure to Include as little of my body as possible. Next I selected my face without my neck in Photo shop, refined the edge and copied it on to a new document. This is where I used a filter called wood grain to get this effect on the images shown in the middle. I had to play around with the smoothness, and the contrast. Once I found the right balance I saved it, and printed it. This is where I used what I did from sophomore year. I covered the back of the printed image in graphite, and traced the lines while the paper was on top of the linoleum piece. Once I finished tracing there was an imprint for me to use to carve. Carving into the linoleum wasn't that hard But I had to take it a bit slow because when speeding up the carving motion there is a change for it to jerk away from the piece, and possibly ruining the block print. Once I "thought" I finished carving I tried to print it, and found that I wasn't even close to having a good print. So I had to go over the areas that were too tall. After a fair bit of extra carving I came out with a pretty decent print.
Inspiration and Theme
My inspiration was the pop art movement and Roy Lichtenstein's drowning girl. The comic like piece of drowning girl is a similar to the comic like feel of my block print which was what I wanted. Also the shape of Lichtenstein's piece is basic yet there it's clear that It is a girl drowning and we don't miss the message. In my block print The shapes are comparably basic to Lichtenstein's and the Idea of my screaming is obvious to see. I chose to focus on the theme of obsession for my piece which is why I am screaming in the piece. there are less complex ways of showing obsession, like showing a drug, beer bottle, or someone using one of those two. How does my piece relate to obsession? Well how do people deal with being obsessed with something they don't want to be? Obsession is not like interest, it's a very negative interest in something, therefore no one wants to be obsessed. And when trying to get rid of an obsession It takes a lot of will power. And when you struggle to get rid of it, it just makes you want to scream.
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Roy_Lichtenstein_Drowning_Girl.jpg
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Reflection
What I felt I Could Improve OnI had a challenge with making the background completely white, and that cost me a lot of time in the making of the block print. If I had just made deeper cuts the first time then I would have been able to save time and get this project done sooner.
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What I felt I Did WellI was able to capture the vision I had in mind for the piece. It definitely is not too complex, while still having enough detail to represent me screaming. Making the print look clean took the longest out of all of the processes for making it, and I am happy with the final product.
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