Drypoint Postcard

 

These prints were based on a photograph of 33 Thompson Street, in New York.  It's known for being the skyscraper without windows.  The original photograph itself shows an interesting example of perspective.

To make these prints, I scratched into the surface of plexiglass, applied ink, removed the excess, then used a press to transfer it to paper.
The reason that plexiglass was used was because it was transparent, allowing me to place a reference image underneath to trace over.  The photograph of the building was manipulated in photoshop so as to reduce it to black/white and bring out the lines, making it easier to trace.  Because my image contained so many straight lines, I used a ruler to help with tracing.  It took quite a long time, and forgetting that the print would be a mirror image, I neglected to reverse the original printout.  (Thankfully, there was no text made illegible.)
For one print, I used red ink.  I then embellished the print by painting in the sky with watercolors.  I used a graduated wash to make it darker at the bottom and lighter at the top, giving the impression of sunlight shining from above.  I also outlined other buildings in the image with pen.
For the other print, I used both red and blue ink, which then became purple.  This color is my personal favorite, and I think that especially for cityscapes, it stands very well on its own.
In the end, both prints came out quite cleanly, and distinctly presented the building.

Monoprint

This piece began with a sheet of colored paper.  I cut pieces of tissue paper and newspaper and glued it on to create an interesting background.  When I cut out the newspaper, I used images of Marina Bay Sands and a watch face.  I also cut out some letters in ransom-letter style to spell out SUCCess.
After that, I printed onto the paper using a gel printing plate, acrylic paint, and various stencils.  I intentionally mixed the paint to be a dismal, dark purple.  I also used some tools to remove a bit of paint from the plate before printing, to create more complex patterns than I could with stencils.  The stencil allowed the "SUCCess" to show through.  On another portion of the paper, I printed with a scaly stencil, although I wish I used something that let more paint through.  On the plate, I added a line of gold paint, and by rolling perpendicularly with the brayer I could make the line repeat in parallel, which was reminiscent of digital image glitching.  It was a really interesting effect, but I didn't get to clearly show it.
When printing was finished, I added embellishment.  I drew on it with black pen and white pencil, to emphasize certain parts (such as the watch face) and add more.

(On a sidenote- I'm definitely vaporwave inspired, and I think it's interesting (and probably ironic) that I used traditional art mediums for it, rather than the archetypical photoshop work and technology motifs.)

STPI Print

People from the Singapore Tyler Print Institute came to our school for a printing workshop.

We started with the background, a single color print.  I covered a plastic sheet with ink, then removed ink to create designs.  I varied between the thinner, pointed tool (for thin lines) and the wider spatula (for thick lines).  By removing short, wide areas in a circle, I made a pattern that looked like flowers.  This is one of the things I'm most proud of in this piece.
I also used my fingers to remove ink, making the fingerprints along the bottom.

After that, we worked on printing an animal on top of it.  I decided to use a sheep, because I thought it would be a little funny.  When we cut out the stencil, we were left with a positive and a negative of the shape.  I put the positive in the frame so that it would print as a negative, because I wanted to preserve the flower designs in the middle.  I chose red ink, and luckily, it ended up not being completely opaque.  It's still possible to see the other parts of the original monoprint underneath it.

To finish the piece, I added some final embellishments.  Using a marker, I added an eye, a line for the ground, and small lines to give the impression of overlapping fluff around the outline of the body.  Faintly, there are also diagonal lines in blue pencil.  I think I could have done more in terms of embellishments, as my current ones aren't so obvious.

Foam Block Sculpture

Our final sculpture project was to carve a styrofoam block, which was a reductive technique that removed material to create the image.  These sculptures were meant to show cultural imagery, and from the beginning I knew I wanted to use Celtic symbols.



I noted down various symbols and sketched out the ones that I wanted to use.  I especially wanted to feature a simple Celtic knot and show where each line passed over and under the others.  I planned a basic idea for my sculpture, but I only knew beforehand what I intended for the top third and not for the rest.

 

This is the final sculpture.
The top third features the Celtic knot and a 3 spiral symbol.  To bring out the shape of the knot, I made the line go deeper in next to where the other line crossed over.  This is one of the best looking features of the sculpture, and it really gives the impression that it's a truly woven knot.  As for the spirals, there is a slight gradient that makes the centers of each spiral stand out more.  (A chunk broke off from the top during the carving, which was unfortunate, but I glued it back on and was able to continue with my plan.  Hopefully it isn't too noticeable!)
In order to create volume, I completely cut out holes in the negative space between the lines of the knot.  This was challenging, as the holes needed to be precisely shaped, but with small tools I could carefully take material away.
The next section has the double spiral symbol, which spans two sides of the block.  The edge between the two sides was rounded out so as to let the spiral flow across in a more appealing way.  The spirals curl inward, in contrast to the upper spirals, towards more holes through the block.
The bottom part was carved out like a single spiral that corkscrewed around.  The inside of the lines is convex, as if there was a cylinder inside, while the outside flat surface was made ever so slightly concave to contrast with it.

Wire Figure Sculpture

The wire figure sculpture project captures the image of a human in motion.  As an initial reference, we did gesture drawings of people in various poses.  These are two of drawings I did.

 

These were done with charcoal on paper.  Loose strokes were used to capture the position and the proportions of different body parts.  This part went well for me, as I focused on the flow in the shapes rather than trying to capture an outline.

The gesture drawings were then used to inspire the pose of the wire sculpture.

 

To make this sculpture, I used one thick wire as the basic frame (head, torso, legs) and several thinner wires for the arms and to give all parts the necessary mass.  Tissue paper was glued onto the wire figure to create volume, with some spaces being closed off and others open to air.
The pose of the sculpture was inspired by the second gesture drawing above, but more like a running pose than a lunge.
Working with wire was tricky, as it was with the earlier abstract nylon sculpture, however I found the thinner wire much easier to work with.
While my initial intention was to have the correct proportions, I unfortunately ended up making the torso too long.

Abstract Nylon Sculpture

 

This is an abstract sculpture, created with wire, nylon fabric, and colorful thread.

To create mass and extend beyond the base, thick wires were attached and bent into curves.  A nylon stocking was put over the wires to create the surface of the sculpture.  This part was challenging for me, because I couldn't keep the shape I wanted with my initial attempt, but I started over with new wires and accepted that the wires' shape will change with the nylon.

To create volume, the nylon was pulled inside, and hooked between wires on a loose end.  The colorful threads create more empty spaces and volume.

Unfortunately, I was unable to make the nylon surface itself colorful, but this was made up for with the addition of colorful thread.  I was able to successfully sew them with even spacing, and even do a cool effect with the twist of the blue threads.