Prints Project

From right to left: Artist Proof, Prints on White Paper, Multi-Colored Prints, Prints of Found Paper

This project was way more fun than I thought it would be! Like most art projects, the starting point for this project was to sketch out a design. I choose to design a panda cub in the middle of a bamboo forest sitting inside a basket. It’s kind of difficult to see where the bamboo begins and where the basket ends, but it’s a problem I didn't notice until it was too late.

 The next step to making a print is to carve out your design on something that can hold ink, such as wood, linoleum tiles, or in the case of our class, a rubbery type of block. Carving out your design can be very difficult. You have to have a steady hand and make sure that the type of carver you’re using is going to give you the lines you want. It can also be hard to make details depending on big the material you’re carving out is.

After everything is carved out all you have to do is pick out different types of ink and get a roller. First you put a small blob of ink onto your material and then use your roller to spread it all across. When you have enough ink on, you press it onto what you want to have your print on, this will usually be a piece of paper. To put new ink on your pattern all you have to do is wash it off and start over again. For our project, every student had to make an artist’s proof, two prints on white paper, four prints that were the same, three multi-colored prints, and two prints on “found” paper (wallpaper, magazine articles, pictures, etc).