Dry Point:
Planning:
Inspiration:
My inspiration stemmed from two particular art movements, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. For the Symbolism movement, I decided to choose Odilon Redon, and I decided to let this piece be the main aspect of the Dry point. I decided to take the body and legs from The Crying Spider and figure out a way to incorporate in a proportional way. I wanted to contrast between beauty and ugliness, so I tried to keep these photos as close to the final piece as possible. I thought through what I wanted the final piece to resemble, and I wanted the photo to be colored to keep the contrast between the tow. I love how dark and murky Odilon Redon's style is completely different than Alphonse Mucha's bright and colorful art style. The floral patterns differentiate from the dark cross-hatched shading in the background from The Crying Spider. For Alphonse Mucha (Daydream), I was in awe at how neat and thin his line art was. The symmetrical line art looked beautiful, and I wanted to copy it in my own fashion. I already knew it would be a challenge for me to replicate his art style, but I wanted a challenge. For my Dry point, I wanted to steal the beauty of the woman's face and draw it over the spider body. I also wanted to take his symmetrical circles and floral patterns, and create it as a background instead of just a simple tanish brown background. At first I thought I should have done The Crying Spider by itself as a piece, but I'm glad I was able to take both of the artworks and combine it in one. I didn't want to base my project from one art movement, which I find it to be not entertaining (based on my last project, I tried to keep a wider horizon on artworks I can combine into one). |
Sketches:
For the first sketch, I decided to use pencil so I can shade certain areas. I was envisioning that the ink could smudge a bit around the shaded areas to create a smooth blend just like the Art Nouveau movement. I also wanted to incorporate the flowers and intricate lines (I used pencil so I could erase and create a cleaner line). For the body I wanted to keep the typical spider body type from The Crying Spider. I tried to use more of a crosshatched shading technique when I'm inscribing. In the end, I decided to use this as my final sketch.
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The second sketch was inspired by different Art Nouveau paintings I looked up for inspiration. I was thinking about doing this one because the women in the photo looked more elegant, but this was more of a test run. I overall wanted to get better at drawing flowers. This was a close choice, but I decided to keep this sketch for practice.
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This sketch was before I had any clear inspiration for my piece. I was sure that I wanted to do a piece inspired by Odilon Redon. For the human portion of the piece, I was trying to test the boundaries of how much human elements should I add over spider. I was basically trying to figure out proportion, and I didn't like the results of this sketch.
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Process:
Process:
Before I started anything, I peeled away the plastic from the panel and it over the sketch I wanted to inscribe. I taped the edges of the panel to prevent it from moving. Afterwards I started to inscribe using the dry point etching tool. I was easily able to trace over the drawing. I noticed that whatever I carve away will be black instead of white, so I simplified it being opposite from the Block Print project. I first carved away the foreground of the image (the creature) then I made my way to the background (the flowers and symmetrical lines took me the longest to carve). When the panel was carved and ready to ink, I began to soak a watercolor sheet a paper for approximately 5-8 minutes. While the paper is soaking, grab some newsprint and lay it out on a table (this part of the process is quite messy). Using the Dry Point oil based ink, I only layered my panel with a bit of ink using a palette knife. I used the tan colored scrapper, and I started to pull in the edges of ink into the piece. After the panel was completely fill with ink, I used some newsprint to wipe away the excess amount. I wiped away the smudged areas and places where I don't want ink to show up. I took off my gloves and cleaned my hands. I took out the water color paper and laid it out to dry on a towel. I waited for a bit, then I placed a piece of newsprint, watercolor paper, and the panel under the EZcut slab roller. I only ran it through once and I peeled away the panel to reveal my print. I set my print on the drying rack to dry. |
*Click to enlarge slideshow process*
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Experimentation:
Trying to get the best print possible was difficult for me, especially since I'm new with the materials. Surprisingly, it only took me a few tries to get a quality print. My first try was a complete failure as, the print didn't even show up. I waited to long to create my print, and the paper dried. It turned out patchy and looked scratched out. The second print turned out much better than I expected, almost perfect. The third print I did was too wet and created a hole within the paper before the process was even finished. I chose to keep the best looking print and throw the others away. While waiting for the paper to dry, I thought of adding a watercolor affect to me piece. On a separate sheet of paper, I started planning out colors and playing with the medium. After a small dilemma, I decided to color in the piece using similar pastel colors. I decided to use lime green for the stem of the flowers, sun burnt yellow for the dress, a vermillion red for the hair, and a mixture between salmon and rose pink for the background. After painting the piece, I enjoyed the final results. |
*Click to enlarge slideshow experimentation*
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Originally, I was going to leave my Dry Point Print without color, but I decided to show more of a resemblance towards the Art Nouveau. Looking at the spider body of the final piece, I thought that would resemble the movement enough.
Reflection:
Critique:
In the end, I believe I did a well job completing this piece. I enjoyed carving in the floral patterns and especially the spider legs. I found those two parts of the piece to be the must enjoyable. Some of the ink from time to time would smudge by accident which would almost ruin the piece. What was the most challenging part of the piece was distributing the right amount of ink onto the panel. I didn't want to add too much ink or the image will smudge, or I didn't to add not enough ink. It was difficult to come to a consensus, but it took a long time. I felt as though I shouldn't carve too deep in the legs of the piece, because it came out patchy in the print. I thought when carving into the panel, that I should have been more confident in by scratches because some of the lines in the print weren't clean and defined.
When water coloring my final print, I had some difficulty with adding shadows. Since the paper was originally left in the water for a long time, it made it challenging to spread any colors around. It would take awhile for the paper to dry, nevertheless I was too impatient and I wanted to finish coloring as quickly as possible. This almost caused the same incident before when I created a whole in my print paper by rushing and adding too much water. It was hard to create certain light colors because the contrast with the dark ink would make the piece look sloppy/muddy. The back side of the paper bleed throw,with forced me to limit how much watercolor detail I should add. Besides all the flaws of the print and the long process, I do believe I enjoyed creating this piece.
In the end, I believe I did a well job completing this piece. I enjoyed carving in the floral patterns and especially the spider legs. I found those two parts of the piece to be the must enjoyable. Some of the ink from time to time would smudge by accident which would almost ruin the piece. What was the most challenging part of the piece was distributing the right amount of ink onto the panel. I didn't want to add too much ink or the image will smudge, or I didn't to add not enough ink. It was difficult to come to a consensus, but it took a long time. I felt as though I shouldn't carve too deep in the legs of the piece, because it came out patchy in the print. I thought when carving into the panel, that I should have been more confident in by scratches because some of the lines in the print weren't clean and defined.
When water coloring my final print, I had some difficulty with adding shadows. Since the paper was originally left in the water for a long time, it made it challenging to spread any colors around. It would take awhile for the paper to dry, nevertheless I was too impatient and I wanted to finish coloring as quickly as possible. This almost caused the same incident before when I created a whole in my print paper by rushing and adding too much water. It was hard to create certain light colors because the contrast with the dark ink would make the piece look sloppy/muddy. The back side of the paper bleed throw,with forced me to limit how much watercolor detail I should add. Besides all the flaws of the print and the long process, I do believe I enjoyed creating this piece.
Compare & Contrast
Similarities: The Art Nouveau:
Symbolism:
Differences:
The Art Nouveau:
Symbolism:
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ACT Responses:
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The woman's face from Daydream was the same face I tried to incorporate in my piece and the spider body and legs from The Crying Spider by Odilon Redon.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author's thoughts on Symbolism as a literary form of relation between objects/meaning and expresses dreams and visions. For Art Nouveau, the author didn't regard much about it relating to my inspiration.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc, while you researched your inspiration?
While researching, I noticed that the Art Nouveau movement is resembled around pastel colors and thin symmetrical lines. For Symbolism, is more murky and dark. The colors are harsh and mysterious.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My theme for this piece was "fear". Around my research, I wanted to incorporate something beautiful trying to overshadow ugly (as the face is beautiful hiding the spidery body). This is related around the fear of imperfection. I changed my theme from m last project block print, because I didn't think I could create something that would still be related to it.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The Symbolism movement is spiraled from dreams and false reality. It also embodies emotion experiences from artists' past through line, color, and composition. The Art Nouveau movement was used a free art style, especially since the movement started around the Industrial Revolution and WW1.
The woman's face from Daydream was the same face I tried to incorporate in my piece and the spider body and legs from The Crying Spider by Odilon Redon.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author's thoughts on Symbolism as a literary form of relation between objects/meaning and expresses dreams and visions. For Art Nouveau, the author didn't regard much about it relating to my inspiration.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc, while you researched your inspiration?
While researching, I noticed that the Art Nouveau movement is resembled around pastel colors and thin symmetrical lines. For Symbolism, is more murky and dark. The colors are harsh and mysterious.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My theme for this piece was "fear". Around my research, I wanted to incorporate something beautiful trying to overshadow ugly (as the face is beautiful hiding the spidery body). This is related around the fear of imperfection. I changed my theme from m last project block print, because I didn't think I could create something that would still be related to it.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The Symbolism movement is spiraled from dreams and false reality. It also embodies emotion experiences from artists' past through line, color, and composition. The Art Nouveau movement was used a free art style, especially since the movement started around the Industrial Revolution and WW1.
Bibliography:
“Symbolism Movement Overview.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/symbolism/.
WidowCranky, et al. “The Crying Spider – Odilon Redon.” Widowcranky, 29 June 2018, https://widowcranky.com/2018/06/29/the-crying-spider-odilon-redon/.
Mucha, Alphonse. “Daydream by Alphonse Mucha.” Pixels, https://pixels.com/featured/daydream-alphonse-mucha.html.
LeBourdais, George Philip. “The Story Behind Art Nouveau.” Artsy, 23 Nov. 2016, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-nouveau.
WidowCranky, et al. “The Crying Spider – Odilon Redon.” Widowcranky, 29 June 2018, https://widowcranky.com/2018/06/29/the-crying-spider-odilon-redon/.
Mucha, Alphonse. “Daydream by Alphonse Mucha.” Pixels, https://pixels.com/featured/daydream-alphonse-mucha.html.
LeBourdais, George Philip. “The Story Behind Art Nouveau.” Artsy, 23 Nov. 2016, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-nouveau.