Thursday morning, I was lucky enough to have another
opportunity to look at the Swat Valley crafts.
There was a necklace that had caught my eye, and I grabbed it up as soon
as I entered the room. I plan to wear it
to my friend's wedding next week!
After I acquired my new lovely item, I had a moment to pick
the brain of another workshop participant that I had the pleasure of
meeting. Gail had been teaching
printmaking for years, and Eileen had even come to do a residency in her high
school. I was curious as to what types
of themes she had used to make the Chipboard Relief process accessible to her
high school students. She had amazing
ideas, which started my wheels turning on what types of projects I could begin
next year.
Soon, Eileen pulled us together again to give a printing
demonstration using the etching press, which creates soft to hard contact using
the felt pads on one side and the hard press on the other.
Here we learned about how overlaying, both
over Chine Colle' and over various layers of ink, can create depth and visual
interest.
Who would have thought that
making little swirls with q-tips would have created such an awesome look?
Eileen also showed us how the blending medium
changed the consistency of the ink so you could paint with it on your plexi
glass.
You could even use water!
Using the ink as a type of water color
created a bubbly transparent look, but you could also see your brush strokes
when the ink was printed onto the absorbent paper.
Finally, Eileen demonstrated the reductive
method, where ink is rolled over a large area and then pulled away with a
"Bounty"(paper towel).
Over
the course of the week, Bounty paper towels were probably our most important
tools besides the brayer itself.
They're
used for texture, the reductive method, wiping away unwanted ink to define a
shape, and as the quicker picker-upper during clean up(if that's not a positive
endorsement, what is?).
After our demonstration, I prepared my ink. I started by painting the red stripes of my
patriotic balloon onto the plexi glass, and while it was fun painting with such
a different texture than what I was used to, there was no way to avoid creating
the look of brush strokes, so I came to embrace it. I used my trusty bounty paper towel, and a
medical grade q-tip(which we used for different purposes than household q-tips
based on the tightness of the cotton) to help me wipe away clean lines from
each stripe. I finally printed my first
attempt at the red balloon stripes right before lunch and LOVED the look. There were fine little brush stroke lines in
every inch of the red ink, and the look around the edges was crisp and clean. I was so excited!
During lunch, I wrote down note after note again on my
trusty iphone notepad. Each meal or
discussion with this group of educators was another learning experience. I realized in hearing my colleagues discuss
their past and present plans for the school year that I had not yet done enough
collaboratively. I discussed ideas
throughout this period for collaborating with English classes and elementary
art classes to complete a common goal. I
believe it could be a very rewarding experience for my students to experience
working with an English class by illustrating their poetry. The process of interpreting another peer's
idea and expressing it through the arts may also assist students in considering
what the "audience" would interpret from their own work. Collaborating with another age group could
also help incorporate the idea of outreach and community into my classroom, and
perhaps instill an idea of how art can be, and is, brought into everyday life
instead of just in the art room. My
colleagues also shared with me the process of research from the students'
perspective. Research of a given topic
is imperative in order to assist students in truly making connections to what
they are learning and identify what parts of what they are researching are the
most important.
The process of printing off of the plexi glass is a nerve
wracking experience, especially for a perfectionist. In our workshop, it seemed like we were all
perfectionists, as we were all stressing so much each time we would use the
press! One of the hardest parts of this
process is the laying down of your paper so the registration marks match those
on your template. There is actually a
special way to hold your paper when you go to do this so that you can be as
accurate as possible. If you miss your
mark, your work will not line up properly.
For instance, the star area of my balloon could wind up being nowhere
near the stripes, or Noah's painted face could wind up an inch away from his
Chine Colle' silhouette. This is not a
medium for the faint of heart, and I'm not sure if monotypes would be healthy
or terrifying for someone who is obsessive compulsive.
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Gail's Printed Rabbits |
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The other side to this is that each time we printed, and
properly aligned our registration marks so our paper was perfectly in place, it
was instantly gratifying to lift away our printed paper.
Each time, we cheered for our classmates'
accomplishments and complimented the work because each print was just that
beautiful.
My classmate, Gail, had experienced firsthand how much
attention has to go into each print, as she actually printed one of her images
backwards! She was printing a rabbit
onto her work and suddenly now there appeared to be two rabbits jumping in
opposite directions. Immediately, I saw
a shark's mouth shape in the overlap of her work and I actually loved the
accidental image. While Gail did not
turn the rabbit overlap into a shark, she did embrace the "happy
accident", and added the same turned rabbit to another print to make it
part of her series. It was truly the
mark of a creative and adaptable artist.
I finished all of my red stripes before class had officially
ended, but I stayed late to begin the blue top of my balloon.
Painting around each of the stars was time
consuming, but almost meditative.
Each
time I flicked my brush the wrong way, I cleaned up my mistake with a medical
grade q-tip(I need to get some of these if I'm going to teach monotypes).
It was hard to tell if I had painted the blue
on evenly looking from both the front and the back of the plexi, but I loved
the look of the final result printed on the paper, even if it wasn't
perfect.
I finished two of my balloon
tops before I was exhausted.
It had been
a fun, informative, and productive day, and I left the last balloon to finish
Friday morning.
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Above is the Chine Colle' piece on the left side(look for a faint cream color) of the paper with my printed balloon! |