After getting a taste of screen printing while working at Nosh Pit Detroit making T-shirts a few years ago, I got the opportunity to sign up for a printmaking class at my university. I had a drawing class last semester and was shown a promotional video about the printmaking class available. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since the only experience I had was a sliver of the screen printing process. Despite a lack of prior knowledge, the class has been incredibly fun and my professor has done a great job explaining the processes to us and answering our many, many questions. We started class by getting our first prompt; “What once was.” I recently started listening to more ethereal, futuristic sounding music, and for some reason, that’s immediately where my mind went. I like music that makes you feel like you're gliding through space, admiring the stars and planets and letting the music be the only thing that matters. I thought back to the many theories I’ve heard about past lives, soul contracts, soul mates and the mysteries that lie in the pyramids of Egypt. I decided to combine my interest in these theories and the imagery that the music I listen to inspires. After tons of sketches, etching my copper plate with my design, and dipping it in acid, it was time to make my first prints. I was definitely nervous about how it would turn out, but as I flipped the page over after finally putting it through the press, my image was revealed to turn out better than I had anticipated. After our first process, our professor informed us we would be doing a second process on the same copper plate to add to our original design. This process of adding value is called aquatint. This process was much more difficult, and required multiple dips in the acid to create varying layers of value. The aquatint process was pretty intimidating, but I love how my prints turned out. It made my work more abstract and the splattering of the stars and glow of the soul mates and pyramid are better than I imagined and make the image more powerful.
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AuthorEmily Houde ArchivesCategories |