Day Six – Late Start, Sticky Fingers, Layer Two

Day Six – Late Start, Sticky Fingers, Layer Two

Late starts and printmaking don't really mix, or in better terms, a short amount of studio time is really hard on the students work. But I was surprised with the amount of work pushed out by students in 33 minutes. Second layers were pushed down and final first layer cuts were made. Seeing works coming together gets everyone looking forward.

There is just something so cool to see the students roll that first layer of color over their tan plates and see the image come to life. I've literally heard students go, “Wow” after their first piece of paper is printed. Looking at a drab plate you've sent hours carving isn't the most exciting thing. Students switch so quickly from hating the project to liking it.

Printmaking is a love/hate type of thing, similar to any art form. But it's not a instant reaction type of process versus drawing or painting. We don't make one or two marks to create a final product, we have to make many many many marks and follow several steps to get to that final piece.

From my old-folky printmaking heart -

As people by nature are experimental and perceptive; valuing experience and quality in any work form, and printmaking is no different. And when you are printmaking, it’s not only the final product but whole process and the experience that matters. It engages an artist’s sense of work, which certainly makes print making a beautiful experience.

I'm just excited to be sharing printmaking with these students, yes it's a struggle, but all art is. Printmaking is not only an art form, but a way we live and think today. It is through printmaking that we have most of our earlier art forms reproduced and preserved for today’s generation. Printmaking has actually formed the basis of the way humans have developed art and literature.

Why is printmaking an important thing to teach? It forces students to think in terms of a complicated process, rather than simply getting pigment to reflect light and make images on canvas. They learn about an art that straddles modern technology and the expressive arts.