Perfecting Printmaking

     We explored printmaking in Art. This was a very intricate process. To start, we researched two animals and drew sketches of them in their environment. We then used a viewfinder to pick a unique view and do only a portion of our sketch. We then traced and transferred back and forth with tracing paper to get the image onto a piece of linoleum.  Next, we carved out pieces of the linoleum to create raised areas that the ink would touch and texture for emphasis. After that, we rolled ink out with a brayer onto a tablehook and rolled it evenly onto colored paper. This was a very cool project, and even with a tedious procedure the end products looked really cool! I enjoyed exploring what color inks would go with the colored paper. But it did take me a while to finally find a color scheme that worked for my piece. From the way I had carved my linoleum, if I used dark ink on lighter paper it created a "negative" affect. From that I learned that the turn out was much more realistic looking if I used a darker paper with lighter inks. The coolest part was using multiple inks. All you had to do was squirt them out and roll the brayer up and down and to the sides a little bit to blend them, and the result was amazing! I learned that you had to put a pretty good amount of ink on the linoleum to achieve the look you were gong for. I also learned how house painters feel with their paint rollers!