Exploration

This week was an exploration for me.  Last week Janie had told me to try drawing and so I decided to stop rushing into wood blocks, for a little, and start sketching.  I began with charcoal and tried to draw as big as I could, which proved to be not so easy.  However, the sketches did start to open me up to new angles and possibilities for my train image.  When I did a blind contour drawing of the train I was actually really excited about the results.  I think that for my next woodblock instead of doing tons of textures, I am going to try and do a simple line drawing.

Since I can’t actually stop carving because it is just something I have to do, I had an image of a teddy bear that I was cutting in to on the side.  I’m not going to include this image in the show, but it was more for experimentation and gave me the opportunity to take a break when I grew tired of sketching.

Friday/Saturday/Sunday

This weekend I worked on a lot of sketches of the train at different angles.  I used charcoal, white charcoal, pen, sharpie, pencil, and some colored pencil (that I didn’t end up liking).  I thought my explorations were very successful after a while and it was definitely a necessary step in my artistic process.

(3 hours)

Monday/Wednesday

I had been sketching all weekend, so I felt the need to explore other ideas for a wood block, maybe one that didn’t include a train.  I was thinking of toys that are common and relate to a particular part of our lives and when Endi mentioned, in class, that our next project was on water he sparked an idea.  I chose to do a rubber ducky in a bathtub because I feel as if this is an iconic image.  Also, I wanted to try a block that not only highlighted the toy, but also gave it some context and a background.  I’m very excited about this reduction print and I can’t wait to get started.

(3 hours)

Tuesday/Thursday

I worked on my grant for some of the time and later continued to sketch the two metal toys that I had bought from Treasure Mart.  I also was able to transfer my image of a rubber ducky onto my birch block so that I can begin to layout the different colors/layers of my cuts.

(6 hours)

For this coming week…

I think it would be beneficial if I sketched different toys as well and did more drawings in blind contour.  I’m excited about this new possibility and can’t wait to see if it transfers well on to wood.

I would also like to start to carve into my new wood block and possibly print the image of my teddy bear by hand just so I can see how the image is coming along.