BLOCK PRINT
"The Ugly Duckling" |
OVERVIEW:
Title: "The Ugly Duckling" Dimensions: 6in x 9in Medium: Linocut Date: October 2023 EXHIBITION TEXTUsing linoleum boards and carving into them was a first for me. I have always found it in my art that I have the easiest time when I am able to easily manipulate color and line with my own hand, but carving something made me struggle with letting my art be imperfect and devoid of color. I was forced to use other methods of art to maintain a message and create an image that can be known without any explanation from me. I had to learn to work backwards, using highlights to create shadow was something I didn't have experience doing and when working with block print it's something you need to figure out fairly quickly. The piece I created directly correlates with being a teenager and feeling very out of place but knowing that there is a future to work towards and be proud of.
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INSPIRATION
ARTIST: RACHEL MULLIGAN
My block print is inspired by Rachel Mulligan. Mulligan uses chunky lines to create a storybook style linocut, her relationship to nature shines in her work, which mostly consists of animals and plants. In her work, there is a childlike sense of what the world looks like, her work connects to the beauty and innocence of something so simple. Most of Mulligan's work includes the thick lines and bold outlines, she uses the negative space to create shadows surrounding the main figure. The first thing I loved about Mulligans work was that it looked so much like an old storybook I would have read when I was young. I always loved the art in Mother-Goose and Alice and Wonderland. Mulligan's work combines real life and storybooks and brings them to life in her linocuts. The emotions a viewer might feel is up to their interpretation, which is the best part of Mulligan's work.
PLANNING
I had an idea of what I wanted to do going into this project, I loved the story of the ugly duckling so I decided to make a sketch of the main idea of the story. I added the most detail I possibly could knowing that a lot of the detail would be lost when I started the carving process. I wrote enough notes to keep my focus on things I wanted to keep in my final sketch, I also wrote a little story of the meaning of the piece on the side of the sketch to keep in mind what emotions to keep in the piece.
I shaded as many areas as I could without losing the lines, I decided to leave out a lot of these lines in my final sketch because I wanted to have natural thick lines much like the lines in Rachel Mulligan's work. Throughout this sketch, I added the reeds and the sun and moon at the very last minute to add to the feeling of being in a pond. As I finished up this sketch I moved on to a technique sketch of water and lily pads to decide if I wanted to include water designs. |
This sketch was used as my technique sketch, I was attempting to work with water and more flow patterns, in this sketch I started to shy away from Mulligan's work a bit too much for my liking, however I continued practicing on this page as it seemed good practice for sketching out my final piece. I left minimal notes on this sketch as I realized very quickly that I would not be using these techniques in my final sketch and block print. Eventually, I decided to keep the water design minimal and pay more attention to the main figures in the middle so as to stay closer to Mulligan's style of linocut.
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I came up with this for my final sketch, I left much to my creative freedom since I wanted to have very natural and slightly messy lines. I added more simple shapes like the moon and sun and decided to add the trees in as more of a story book swirl look. I kept minimal line work and shading, I decided to leave out the water design and focus more on the contrast between the swan and baby swan.
I made the reeds look less developed on the baby swan side to create the idea of growth into the full swan. I decided to leave the background blank so as to draw more attention towards the elements in the center. As I was sketching I realized my drawing resembled a tarot card which I feel is perfect for the story of the Ugly Duckling because the story of an Ugly Duckling is such a personal reflection story. |
PROCESS
STAGE 1To start I took my final sketch paper and covered the back of the page with pencil, I then cut out the outline of the size of the linoleum block that my sketch would go on to, after I had the cut out I taped the paper to my linoleum block and began to trace the lines with pencil to create a replicated version of my sketch onto the block.
Once I had my sketch moved onto my block, I began fixing up areas that needed to be fixed such as lines that didn't transfer well and areas I wanted a little more detail in. Once I was confident with this part, I moved on to the carving process. |
STAGE 2At this stage I started what I assumed would be the hardest part which seemed to be the swan, when creating the swan I knew I needed to work backwards and outline the shadows with the white areas. I quickly realized it was hard to keep track of where my lines were supposed to be, where the shadows were and where I needed to provide deeper carvings.
Working from top to bottom seemed smart until I realized after finishing the top half that the bottom half was smudging, so I grabbed a piece of tissue paper and a thin book and laid it over the area I wasn't carving so that I wouldn't be able to smudge the pencil line with my hand and lose the outline. |
STAGE 3This was my almost fully completed carving stage, at this point I felt pretty confident in my ability to work backwards and make mental notes of what needed to be fixed later on, I had a few slip ups in a few areas up to this point, for example I carved too deeply in some areas which created a couple small holes and one larger hole, I also realized the harder you press into the linoleum rectangle the harder is was to control the tool I was using. I eventually realized the best method was to carve small areas at a time and to be patient with some of the more challenging areas like carving out the circular edges of the trees and reeds.
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STAGE 4This became my final carved block print, before I finished the carving process I grabbed a black marker to cover the middle portion to check that all my lines would work out and that I didn't need to carve any deeper or fix any already carved areas.
Once I was confident in my carved piece I moved on to the printing process which required a bit of cleaner edges than I had so I took a wet paper towel and wiped the edges free of any black marker residue so as not to get my hands or my workspace dirtier than they needed to be. |
STAGE 5This is my final stage of the block print process. While it is not one hundred percent perfect, I felt the most proud of this print because I was able to get the most clean edges and background as I believe I possibly could. I have two smudge marks where my fingers came in contact with the still wet ink areas however I realized they were hardly noticeable.
After much messing around with lighting and positioning of my camera I managed to take a centered picture with even lighting. Once I was done with everything and felt I had enough to go with, I put my final piece up on a drying rack and left it to dry for two days. |
EXPERIMENTATION
This was one of my first printing stages and I felt it surprisingly went pretty well, I made sure I had an even coating of ink across my roller and that there wasn't any areas of my ink tray that were too thickly covered in ink. One of the first things I noticed was how hard it was to get the thickness of the ink down to a spreadable substance, it took a lot of time to get all the thicker areas rolled out before I could even begin the printing process, once I had a evenly rolled out ink tray I tried to do as many printings in a row so I didn't have to repeat the spreading process too many times.
This first print didn't go horribly wrong but I still had some issues with the ink coverage, I didn't press the ink into the paper hard enough in some areas which made them duller and more splotchy. |
This was the final experiment printing before printing my final prints which went pretty well, I was able to use all the techniques I had learned up to this point and make a few last mistakes before I was ready to use everything I had learned and make my final prints evenly spread with ink and with as few smudges as I could manage. |
At this point my confidence grew and I invited a friend to teach me some of the ways she was able to get an evenly covered print. One of the things I started paying more attention to was how hard I was pressing down on the block print to the paper. I realized I needed to be putting more pressure in areas with less shadows like the reed area and the full adult swans head.
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CRITIQUE
Rachel Mulligan's style shows heavily in certain areas of my piece. Her love for swans shows thoroughly in my creation of the storybook tale "The Ugly Duckling". The biggest similarity and the element I tried to keep the most similar was the thick lines surrounding the main figure as used in Mulligan's work. Because Mulligan's work shows a sheer appreciation for nature and it's creatures, I tried to also create a piece that shows the story of the ugly duckling in a graceful and appreciative light. I wanted that same storybook feel in my piece as I first noticed In Rachel Mulligan's work. My block print includes the ugly duckling, or in real world terms a baby swan with the symbol of the sun which represents life, and spirituality, contrasting with a full grown swan with the symbol of the moon which represents the rhythm of time and is the embodiment of the cycle. While Mulligan doesn't use a lot of symbolism in her work, I felt it was necessary for symbolism to be present in my art piece so as to better tell the story I wanted to tell.
Another huge element in Mulligan's work is the use of color, she uses many different colors in her block prints whereas I did not have the means to use color in my prints. However, while I was limited to black and white, I feel I used enough of Mulligan's inspiration to not need the element of color. Mulligan also does a very lovely job creating thin lines to contrast with the thicker lines on the edges of the elements in her block print, I also attempted to differentiate my line work and create a variety of lines for the eye to follow. One of the reasons I picked the swan in my art was similar to Mulligan's love for the swan, the swan represents inner beauty and evolution, something that has always been hard for me to see in myself. I have always struggled with change and it has always been hard for me to adapt and see the beauty in my growth since everything seems so far away especially as a kid. The story of the ugly duckling taught me that no one needs to love how you look or who you are, there is a future waiting, and someday you will learn to love yourself for who you have become.
Another huge element in Mulligan's work is the use of color, she uses many different colors in her block prints whereas I did not have the means to use color in my prints. However, while I was limited to black and white, I feel I used enough of Mulligan's inspiration to not need the element of color. Mulligan also does a very lovely job creating thin lines to contrast with the thicker lines on the edges of the elements in her block print, I also attempted to differentiate my line work and create a variety of lines for the eye to follow. One of the reasons I picked the swan in my art was similar to Mulligan's love for the swan, the swan represents inner beauty and evolution, something that has always been hard for me to see in myself. I have always struggled with change and it has always been hard for me to adapt and see the beauty in my growth since everything seems so far away especially as a kid. The story of the ugly duckling taught me that no one needs to love how you look or who you are, there is a future waiting, and someday you will learn to love yourself for who you have become.
REFLECTION
This project was a first for me, I haven't had the change to delve into block prints so I was excited with the idea of stretching my art to other mediums. This project forced me out of my comfort zone and challenged me in ways I didn't think I would be able to be challenged at this stage in my art making. Overall, I definitely developed my shadow and highlighting skills, working backwards with outlining the shadowed areas was very challenging for me to understand and grasp, but throughout the process of working in block prints, I was able to grow more confident in my ability to switch my brain and see both the highlights and shadows as two separate methods of art. With my inspirations from Rachel Mulligan I was able to embody the message I was trying to send with my piece and I had a much easier time understanding how to create certain feelings just by using line thickness. While working with ink was nothing new for me I did have a hard time with evenly coating my block print, as it turns out, printing with ink does not happen on the first, second, or tenth try. This project tested my patience and I feel that I have grown my ability to ask others for help when I see that they are more skilled in something that I struggle in. My favorite part was definitely experimenting, peeling my paper off of my linoleum block was very satisfying and I loved getting my final result when everything was almost perfectly covered. My least favorite part was the carving process, while it got more fun once I got the hang of it, it was hard for me to get a good technique in the beginning. Overall, this process has taught me to dive deeper and to test my skill level in trying other mediums of art.
ACT QUESTIONS
ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
My inspiration came from the works of artist Rachel Mulligan, her thick lined and storybook style block print set her work apart from the usually graceful lines I see in block print. The thick lines can also be seen in my work. I loved the connection Mulligan had with nature and tried to incorporate that into my piece as much as possible.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Mulligan's main focus was how nature can show something within ourselves and how loving even the simplest of natures gifts is the best thing we as people can do.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have learned that using block print comes with a new understanding of how shadows and lines work even in the real world.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
The idea that our environment directly connects to our identities, the ugly duckling story is about a beautiful swan who grew up believing it was ugly because it's environment convinced the swan it was ugly.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The use of line is arguably the most important when it comes to emotions and the mood of and art piece.
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
My inspiration came from the works of artist Rachel Mulligan, her thick lined and storybook style block print set her work apart from the usually graceful lines I see in block print. The thick lines can also be seen in my work. I loved the connection Mulligan had with nature and tried to incorporate that into my piece as much as possible.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Mulligan's main focus was how nature can show something within ourselves and how loving even the simplest of natures gifts is the best thing we as people can do.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have learned that using block print comes with a new understanding of how shadows and lines work even in the real world.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
The idea that our environment directly connects to our identities, the ugly duckling story is about a beautiful swan who grew up believing it was ugly because it's environment convinced the swan it was ugly.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
The use of line is arguably the most important when it comes to emotions and the mood of and art piece.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mulligan, R. (2021, June 18). Shop linocuts. Rachel Mulligan Stained Glass. https://www.rachelmulligan.co.uk/linocuts/