"The Impact of Death"
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Planning |
Brainstorming |
At the beginning of the project, it was asked to choose any obsession that could fit into a theme that was listed. I took some time to figure out what I was obsessed about at the time. My list of obsession consisted of thinking about my future, I also daydream a lot, and the medieval times. Since I had to choose only one obsession, medieval times took a big part of my choice because I enjoy learning about that time period. The medieval era was too broad, so I chose another obsession that was still in that category. The Black Death happened in the medieval period, so that was the option I chose as my final obsession. I chose the theme "creepy" because I felt that my obsession with the Black Death fit better. Before I even chose my obsession, I already sketched different pictures of the previous obsessions. After having a clearer idea of what I wanted to do in the block print, I started to sketch skeletons that represented the Black Death. The things that I wanted to include in the block print were peasants and skeletons. At the end, I finally chose the skeleton that had its finger lifting the chin of a peasant and grinning at him in a malicious way.
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1. Growing up: Toddler to adult to elder
2. Creepy: skeletal hand grabbing a sick peasant.
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Artist Inspiration
For the block print, I was inspired by the art movement of German Expressionism. The main artists that inspired me of that art movement were Kathe Kollwitz and Christian Rohlfs. However, the artist that inspired me the most was Christian Rohlfs because I found several paintings he created that fit with my obsession, Black Death. I looked at several paintings that helped my process of thinking about how to portray my block print. I wanted it to depict death the same way that it has always been seen throughout the existence of life. Medieval art at the time of the Black Death also inspired me to portray Death better. However, since the Black Death or Bubonic Death was one of the worst plagues in history, the people living at that time period had a far more negative view of death since their friends and family were being infected by this. The artists such as writers, painters, etc. began to create these horrendous creatures or skeletons and how it (death) interrupted their daily lives leading them to grief and fear.
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Process
Reflection
For this project I barely had any difficulty since I have done a similar work and have some experience. I enjoyed this project better than the last projects I have done in the past. It gave me the feeling of expressing who I am considering of what I create. The projects, like this one, sum up my personality, likes, dislikes, and in this case, obsession. I had a great time trying to show Black Death since it's one of my favorite subjects to talk about when it comes to history, not only that but I also included some small things that interest me. The mohawk on the skeleton (aka, Death) is a symbol of my musical interest, which represented my other obsession which is punk music. In this project I also had some difficulties with carving since sometimes the linoleum cutters because it went another way and carved another thing that led to ruining my artwork. Another challenge was to press the inked print block onto the paper in a straight manner. There were rarely times when the print came out straight, it mostly came out kind of slanted to one side or another (crooked). In addition to the challenges, I had difficulty with the ink. Sometimes the print had too much ink, needed more ink. Adding to this situation, I also had trouble printing since I would not leave the paper onto the inked print block enough time in order for it to have a clean print. There were times when my print block had the ink dry and I could print properly so I had to ink the block again. One of my successes was that I accomplished creating something that I met my meaning behind it and how it portrayed death if I were a person in the middle ages when the plague was happening. Another success was that it also (sort of) had clean print even though there were small patches of white, but the majority was inked the way I wanted it to. If I were to do this project again,I would plan out more thoroughly on how I want it to look. Another change is to make the printing more clean and estimate about how much ink I need. In the end, this project successfully met with my expectations and I am proud of it.