Bounty and Balloons

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.

Gail's Printed Rabbits

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.

Above is the Chine Colle' piece on the left side(look for a faint cream color) of the paper with my printed balloon!