Etching Process

At the end of term 1, we started our etching, which was to be due at on the Monday of week seven. We had to etch one of the five collages from term one, but Mrs. Vincent suggested to do our black and white collage, because it would be easier to etch as the lines were already there, so we basically just had to trace the picture. The collage had to be trimmed, in order for the sheet of plastic to fit over it without cutting anything important out. An etching needle was then used to scratch away at the plastic. We had to scratch over the lines of the collage; if the lines were darker, we had to press harder and scratch the lines closer together. To create simulated texture, a variety of directional lines were used. Once our etching was done, we then moved on to printing. The printing process is as followed:

1. Write your name, class, teacher and number on a piece of paper
2. Put the paper in the water bath
3. Steps 4-6 are done while wearing
4. Put a generous amount of ink (either black, red or blue) on your etched plastic, and rub the ink into the grooves by using a dabber
5. Once all the grooves are filled with ink, grab a piece of newspaper, scrunch it up into a ball, and wipe off the excess ink from the plastic
6. When the only ink that’s left on the plastic is in the grooves, it’s time to print!
7. Get your paper out of the water bath and dry it using butchers paper.
8. Place a piece of newspaper in the printing press with the fold facing towards the middle
9. Open the newspaper up and put the paper name-side down and put the plastic etched-side down
10. Fold the newspaper and blanket back over, so that the newspaper is folded in two, and so the blanket is covering the whole thing
11. Turn the handle on the printing press! Make sure you turn it all the way.
12. Fold back the blanket and newspaper, and carefully peel off the plastic from the paper
13. Put the paper on the drying rack and Voila! You are finished!

We were required to do at least four black and one coloured. I decided to do two coloured prints: one purple and the other red. We had to choose our best black print for the exhibition, and our second best to colour in. I thought that my best black was my fourth print and my second best was my second print. I chose to colour in my second black print very bright and use surrealistic colours, apart from the man, because it is supposed to be a normal man and his dog stumbling across a surreal world.

Overall, I really enjoyed the etching process, even though it did get tiring and even sometimes boring after etching the same thing for almost seven weeks. It was hard work as well; getting the fine details of the thin lines and forcing the ink into the grooves of the plastic. But I have enjoyed the roundabout nine weeks of etching and printing.

Reflection

Thursday 29th January 2009

We didn't do much this lesson. We bought our visual art diaries and art packs if we needed them. I didn't need to buy a new art pack becasue I knew mine was at home...somewhere. After everyone had got what they needed, Mrs. Vincent started going over what we learned from previous years. This included Visual Language: Elements and Principles.

Friday 9th of February 2009

We judged the exquisite corpses that were completed the last lesson or over the weekend. The corpses were made of cut-outs from magazines. The most surreal won the prize, which was a Mars Bar. The copses were laid out on the table down the front where everyone could see them. The class all voted that mine was the most surreal, so I was the one who won the Mars Bar. Also this lesson we got to work on another collage but this time it had a background and stencil knife was used to cut out the images from the magazines instead of scissors.


Wednesday 11th of February 2009

We continued with our collages for the whole lesson. Because my stencil knife was blunt I had to get the knife replaced with a new one. This made cutting so much easier, as the pages didn’t rip as much and the knife cut much better. Oh and I found my art pack a few weeks ago which I forgot to mention.

Thursday 12th of February 2009

All lesson we made collages from cut-outs from magazines. Other girls have made a few collages but I’ve only made one. Next week we start our real collages that will be used for assessment. This lesson I also broke a stencil knife. Not accidentally of course.

Monday 16th of February 2009

This lesson we looked at what was required for Part B of our Out of Time and Space task. There are 5 collages in total that we have to complete by the peer evaluation. Once we knew that we then started creating our collages. I only looked for backgrounds this lesson. I only found a few, as our lesson was interrupted by a lockdown. Thankfully it was just a practice. At least I had a stencil knife that I could use for self-defense.

2009 Starts Now

My Mask Journey

I loved making my mask this year, it was really fun. My favourite part was the painting because I could expressive and the design and colours were up to me. My least favourite part was doing the modeling paste. I didn't like it because it was time consuming and I wanted to start painting as soon as possible.

Halfway through painting my mask, I thought it looked boring, because it was very plain as the purple spots were not on yet and the mask was just yellow, orange and red. I agreed with Ms. Hampton when she said that the spots made it.

In the end I am very happy with my mask. I think the colours are right and in general, it looks amazing! Well at least I think it does. I hope that next year, art will be this fun!

P.S. I tried to upload photos of my mask but the internet wouldn't upload them.

Reason for Colours

I chose to paint my mask red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, green and black with purple spots because it shows the animal's personality. My animal's characteristics are shown through the colour and design of my mask. It's personality is made up of the three animals I used. Bubble-eyed goldfish is fun, strange, happy and bright (colour). This is shown in the bright colours of the mask, such as orange. yellow and green and the huge eyes. The blue ringed octopus is beautiful but deadly and is shown in the darker colours, like purple and blue, and also in the purple spots. The green tree snake is silent, quick and dangerous. This piece of personality is shown in, yet again, the darker colours and the sudden change in colour, going from the tentacles to the body.

The Colour Wheel

The Colour Wheel

A couple of lessons ago, we had to paint a colour wheel in order to learn about primary, secondary and tertiary colours, as well as tints and tones. In the first picture you can see that the wheel goes around in an order, primary, secondary, primary and so on. The second picture shows that the colours turn darker towards the centre of the wheel, and lighter or paler, towards the outside of the wheel. These are called tones and tints; tones being darker and tints being lighter.

Painting the Mask

Painting

Right now I'm halfway through painting the main part of the head of the mask. I have decided to stick with the original colour scheme, which is shown on the right. It's difficult to paint under and above the tentacles, where they meet the actual mask and to make sure that there is no space left without paint, especially between scales.