Printmaking: Reduction cuts

Tonight, I worked on printmaking homework. My first assignment is to work on practice cuts to explore ways of using the printmaking tools. I knew right away that I wanted to do some trees, but I also made a lot of experimental lines, too. 

I looked at some example cuts and advice online. 

Here is Jodie Hurt’s fish, that I really liked:

 

I also found this nice step-by-step on how to transfer a drawing to a linoleum block because it’s been awhile since I’ve done it and I couldn’t remember if there was anything special I needed to do to make it happen.

Since I wanted to work on trees, I decided to google search “Aspen tree prints” to get an idea of how an actual tree would transfer into a print or drawing style with little shading. I found this beautiful print on etsy that I really liked:

And here’s my work as of about an hour ago, including the sketch:

Texture Experiment : Reblog

While searching for backgrounds for my cards (specifically the “bubble” card – raw image here), I came across an interesting texture experiment that turned into a beautiful swirled art piece. I was also interested in the things that inspired her, so check those out when you go to look at her blog post (the following image is sized down. Click here for the full size or go to her blog post

Amy CrookHer inspirations were also beautiful – there was this piece:

Charles Holbert Jr. (“KidNotorious” on deviant art)
(da account, other Jack-related pieces)

And this interesting art installation series by Kirsty Hall called 365 Jars

“Every day during 2011, Bristol artist Kirsty Hall will go for a walk to release an art jar into the wild for people to find and keep.”

There are some interesting jars, but the photos of the locations and the way the jars are tucked away are far more beautiful to me. I also like the idea of something going out into the wild that people can either search for or stumble upon and keep. It’s like finding a little treasure. Reminds me a little of Geocaching.

It also reminded me of some art I made back in my first semester as an art student in 2-D design:

The Eternal DiveDone for my 2-D Design class – The assignment was to create a variety of lines using sumi ink and various brushes and invented drawing tools to create various lines. Later, we were to cut out the lines and paste them into specific compositions.

The second portion of the assignment was to trace the five line composition, grid the paper, and then fill each section with a different line pattern.

The image can also be viewed on my dA account here (interested parties may also purchase a print of this piece there).

Edit: I’ve finished the Bubble Card using the background from the Jack Skellington piece (shown above). I had to combine layers to remove Jack’s head and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.