Grad school application

These are the images I plan on submitting with my graduate school application. Applicants are to submit 20 images. Right now I have 19, but hope to include an image of my woodblock print I am working on carving right now.

My full portfolio

Wood

I started a new woodblock carving. After a meeting with a former professor about grad school, I was inspired to really get started on printing again. Plus, he encouraged me to keep printing.

The idea for this piece is growing up. It's a simple composition with some tension between the girl figure and the sock monkey in the background. This scene is personal, but I'll elaborate more once I get a print out of it.

These pictures show a bit of my process that's worked for me so far with carving wood blocks.

First I do a sketch:



Then I trace the sketch with Sharpie to clean it up. I transfer the drawing on to the block using a sheet of transfer/carbon paper underneath, then re-trace my lines again on the block with Sharpie. This way I can easily tell what needs to be carved away and what should stay.




In-progress shots:

Printmaking inspiration

I started a Printmaking Inspiration tumblr blog recently, to gather in one place images that inspire me artistically. Through it, I'm starting to see a trend in what attracts my eye. I love line work, bold colors, patterns, portraits, swirles, texture, and collage.



This blog and my regular tumblr blog have both really surprised me. It is interesting to see what I am constantly drawn to. I feel like this is important in art, and I just need to work on refining it!

Printmaking from Spring '09

I was just updating my portfolio online, and realized that there are a few printmaking projects/experiments that I haven't shared! These prints are mostly experiments in themselves... like these color exercises. Every person in the class carved 2 small wood blocks (3x4 inches), then we did a community block swap where we all just picked from the pile and created a series of prints experimenting with color. I carved the swirls block and the bearded man block (both on the left).

Last semester (spring 2009) our final project in class was a mono-printing project. That's where the long & narrow ninja prints are from. The ninja mask is a woodcut, and all the texture and color was created by hand on the piece of plexiglass. The words are made from letters cut out of tagboard.

The Dala horse was an exercise in carving; I never made any prints except for this one.

My favorite woodcut to date is my bra woodcut. I made several different color versions of this print in 3 layers. This is the key block:

Another experiment that I tried out (actually intended for inclusion in a bookmaking project) was Pronto plates. Our TA (and grad student) showed us how to use them, and they are super cheap (like less than $2 per plate). So I did these little cat drawings on the pronto plate with ballpoint pen. They turned out really cute! And I got a couple of good prints, but after that, the ink kept scumming up and it got all sticky and mucky. I'm not sure why - maybe the plate just couldn't stand up to the printing process. Here is one of my proofs:

Still looking into grad school; I really want to go for printmaking. But since I only have 2 semesters worth of experience, I'm a little worried that I won't get into the competitive program. I think I'm going to go out and buy a couple of wood blocks to carve and work on some more prints. I miss carving!