Echo P

Artist statement

This assignment was to see how well you could carve a block and to see how well your ideas came through. We were meant to pick a topic that we felt strongly about and create a picture for it. At the beginning the teacher had us do mind mapping which I rejected. I was going to have a man dying in the back ground while Uncle Sam acted oblivious and helped a young girl who was from another country(how I was going to make that girl look like she was from another country I had not figured out and still haven't). What was most important to me was that it shouldn't look like someone else’s. The difficult part of this project was to make it my own and trying to figure out what parts should be white and what parts should be black. I overcame this by just going with it and trying something new, and doing what looked right and making a print then changing what needed to be changed.

The conflict I choose was how American try's to help and fix other countries before they help their own country. This is important to me because I live in this country and this country needs so much help. I used a variety of short and long lines, along with thick and thin lines. I used the lines to outline the bodies and show the effect of clothing, as well as the blackness in the skin.
When I was making my piece I made sure that Uncle Sam was noticeable and that the Americans In the back looked to be hurt and needing his help and he seemed to be oblivious. His back was turned as to say he turned his back on the people.

I didn't enjoy the print making process as much as I did the drawing portion. Making the print was long, tiring, painful, and sometimes confusing. It was hard to tell what lines should be cut and what lines I shouldn't cut. It was painful when I nicked myself

Jonathan B.

Artist Statement

            The print that I have made, is called, “The power of the Flag.” The print is based upon conflict, but there is more than one conflict shown in the block. The conflicts I put into the print are mostly based around problems between the United States and Iraq, Afghanistan, Etc. Iraq is constantly under the threat of execution and the fear of the nuclear bomb, in which they have no defense against.

          The main emphasis of the print is the person on his, or her, knees with a corn sack covering their entire head. I tried to indicate that this person is being executed. The conflicts represented by this person are the recent executions in Iraq. These executions are mostly based upon equality of rights and/or freedom of speech. This person is intentionally being executed in front of the American Flag, which is a way to say that the flag has no power to stop this person from being executed no matter how powerful the American Flag is believed to be, hence, “The Power of the Flag.”

          On the right side of the print (left side of the block) is the explosion and smoke of a nuclear explosion, which is clearly representing the threat of the nuclear bomb. I made the explosion intentionally larger than the American Flag, to the left of the print. The explosion is larger than the American Flag to argue, “The American flag has no power to stop a nuclear explosion.” If there is a nuclear explosion, what power does the American flag have against it? The print is based on these conflicts because they are conflicts that I hope come to an end as soon as possible. I hope that there will be a time when people in the regions of Iraq and Afghanistan will no longer have to live in fear of being executed and the fear of the nuclear bomb.

Dominic S

Artist Statement

            The assignment for this project was to make a relief print about a type of conflict. It made me think about my family history and the good and bad in the world. Before I started on this art project I had to make a mind map of ideas I had for conflict. I constructed the overall layout of my print in my head. The steps in making this work of art that were most important to me were finding out exactly what the conflict was that I was making the art about. This was also the most difficult part of this process.

            My yin yang approach represents the balance between good and bad. The main theme is the Asian style white dragon that is in the middle of the print. This theme is important to me because dragons are a fairly large part of my Japanese heritage. I used the rule of 3rds to bring most attention to the dragon. The dragon is the light part of the yin yang and I put a dark hacky sack on the other side. The meaning of this is to show the balance between good and evil. I incorporated personal stuff from my life to give this artwork more meaning.

            When I was doing my artwork I made sure that I used juxtaposition. I also used the rule of thirds to create emphasis on the dragon. The use of these elements and principle helped me create visual emphasis by attracting the eye to the dragon and emphasizing the yin yang.

            I really enjoyed doing this project. It was fun and helped me think deeper into my heritage. I want to improve on making smoother cuts in the linoleum and giving things a more lifelike appearance. The best part about my piece is how everything just sort of comes together.

Shayd K.

Taylor K.

Keenan C.

Keenan Clarke Artist Statement

Before I started on this project I had to sketch out thumbnail designs to get a better idea on how I wanted my print to look and still be based off of the conflict that I chose for it. Once I had a good idea on what I wanted to make I had to sketch what I thought was my best thumbnail sketch onto a large piece of tissue paper The steps that were most important to me were when I finally got to sketch out my final design because it was going to be my final result on how my prints would come out. The only thing that I really found difficult to do was carving out the print on my block because it was really hard to cut into the wood. I overcame it by learning better carving techniques and how to hold the tool better.

My conflict represents Money, it shows the Pyramid and giant eye that you see on the back of a dollar bill with building that are on fire in the back round. The bricks that make the Pyramid are dollar bills and the Sun has the money symbol inside of it. This theme is important to me because I believe that money if one of the biggest reasons for almost all of the in our world such as war, deforestation, assassinations, pollution etc. Art techniques that I used were Emphasis and Value. The Pyramid and eye show the main idea of my drawing, I wanted to make it part of the focus since it’s a very familiar to most people because of where it is seen. So I thought it would give people a better understanding or idea of what my print is about.

When I was doing my lines, I made sure that I was careful on the the sizes of them so one piece of the drawing wouldn’t have more emphasis than the other and wouldn’t change or effect what I wanted to have the most emphasis. I also worked on my positive and negative space to make the flames and spacing of the buildings seem more realistic. The use of these elements and principles helped me create visual emphasis by their spacing and value since that’s where your eye will lead to.

I really enjoyed doing this project because it was a step by step project slowly rising to the biggest part of it. I also liked that we had to do over 3-4 different procedures in the project such as carving, what I want to improve the most is my print making since I have a really hard time making them perfect. Next time will try to learn how to better balance out the ink when I make my prints. The best part about my piece I would have to say is my Pyramid and eye because it’s the biggest part of the drawing, most well done and most detailed.   

Jadayja G.

Artist Statement

Before I started on this art project I had to come up with a conflict that I wanted to make the main point of my design. I have a huge love for tigers and I wanted to base my conflict on animal poaching because I believe it’s wrong. In the last 50 years the population of tigers has gone down by 90 percent and I find that completely heart breaking and that’s why I choose this to be my conflict. The steps in making this art project that were most important to me were making sure that the audience could see the conflict. The way I tried showing the conflict was by having tears falling from down the tigers face, representing hurt and pain. One part of the process that was a little difficult for me was being able to get more than one texture throughout the piece. I overcame that difficulty by adding in other types of texture in tigers face, eyes, and the sunset.

           The conflict and theme are both animal poaching, this is such an important topic to me because I’m an animal lover and the fact that the animals in danger are still being killed for reasons such as, being made into clothing, or being used as a fancy rug is wrong. It is illegal to kill a tiger but a tigers coat sells for 20,000$ on the black market. Tigers are such a beautiful animal it would be horrible for them to become extinct. The part of my drawing that I wanted to show my main theme would be the tiger’s eyes with the tears coming from one of them. I made this part the main focus because I felt that it showed the tigers pain the most. There is a lot of meaning behind this art work because I really want others to get involved with saving tigers and not only tigers but other animals around the world that need help.

            When I was doing my art project I made sure that the tiger didn’t look like a cartoon. I wanted him to look as real as possible. An element I used throughout the whole piece was texture, because when you’re making prints, texture is one of the main elements that allow you to really see the image. I also used line because I needed straight lines to be pointing towards the tigers face as if it were the sunset. These elements helped emphasize my prints because they make you notice what is going on in the print.

           I really enjoyed doing this art project because it allowed me to express my feelings towards a topic that I feel strongly about; however, I didn’t like that fact that the martials we used to crave out the prints was extremely hard to carve into. Although I didn’t like the carving out the prints the end product was amazing, I want to improve on my carvings skills, this was only my second time ever doing something like this. I think my prints would have come out if had more time and more experience on carving out things.The best part about my piece is the way the tiger looks because he looks like really hurting.

Brittany W.

This assignment made me think what conflicts in the world really matters to me, I think global warming is important. Before I started this project I studied to way dead tress look like and the ocean at a certain view. After seeing the way the details looked I started to draw. The most important things in this artwork was making the tree look realistic to show what global warming did to the earth. I struggled with thin and thick lines throughout the project.

                My conflict shows how pollution and litter destroyed earth. It’s important to me because in order for humans and animals to live daily life we need clean water and breathable air. I tried to used rhythm in the ocean to emphasis the water coming towards you. I left most of the artwork dark to show how dirty the sky was.

                When I was doing my artwork I made sure to use line and shape while creating the image.  The lines make the tree have texture appearing more realistic. I made sure to use space in order to  make the city to look close to the factories and smoke.

                I really enjoyed certain aspects of this project. I liked expressing my opinions on global warming but I did not enjoy redrawing the original picture onto the gouge. Next time I’ll do better on creating thicker lines.

Herberto S.

 

Artist Statement

 

  With my monolium block I carved a conflict of branding, but to ponder that conflict I had to mind map certain conflicts that interested me which lead from the casual infinite war to causes of war which ranged from territory and resource conflicts to religion. Thinking harder I found that when a certain group separates from one another it is mainly caused by how they label themselves or brand themselves with certain subjects like religion and territory they own which sometimes intertwine like that of Mecca or holy land. Religion itself being a powerful brand, I started researching world religions and their symbols so I can include them in my carving. How do I include religious symbols to reflect branding? With this question in my mind I had to show what conflict religion can cause so I referred back to the casual war subject. To my benefit I could include which regions contained nuclear weapons that are branded by flags. To symbolize war and branding and fill my print I thought to have each region with nukes and the one’s local to it to be spread on three nukes varying in direction along with its related religion to explode from the nuke. Besides representing a conflict, I mainly wanted to show a solution to the conflict and in order to do both I decided to put the branded nukes with religion exploding from it out into space as the only time those regions would do such a thing is when they united as one group without religion or certain rule. The difficulty I had with this carving was being able to fit symbolism of all the religions and the regions with harmful or nuclear weapons on one print and being able to carve small enough to show all of them with detail.

 The conflict I am trying to express in my print is how the difference of one’s branding such as being Christian or Jewish and under what region of land like being American or Mexican, mainly caused by invasion or entry of one or the other, causes conflict. I also was able to represent a solution to my conflict with the background showing space and the origin of the nukes coming from earth and exploding in space along with all the flags and religious symbols that one brands another. With the symbols gone there is nothing left to brand one another or assume a religion or right of land, leaving us to unit as one against the basic conflicts of life and death. Belief is not a life or death conflict.  I tried to emphasize branding and war together by the repetition or abundance of religious and regional symbols and so much so it seems to explode or be of less quality or unique individuality. To present the explosion I used thick double curved lines in several directions that are pushing some religious symbols away from each other and melting or thinning the religious and regional symbols with the explosion of the nuke. This is mainly represented by the disoriented Buddha, Jewish star, and flags. I used wavy lines on the Buddha to represent melting.

  Due to the size of my print and abundance of symbols for branding including all the religions and flags along with the symbolism of war, being the nukes, three nuclear silos all together in opposite directions, I had to carve really small lines to show detail and thick lines to represent an outline of the objects. Moreover the symbols, I had to carve out a circle for the moon for my space background, but to make it look more realistic I had to leave a couple disorientated circles to represent a view craters on the moon. Because the moon looks like its smiling from far away I made the craters, disorientated circles, in the shape of a smile. To my benefit, it also emphasizes the solution behalf of my conflict as the moon in personification is happy to see all the conflict of branding eradicated.  

 By mind mapping simple conflicts of war, it seemed to me that I found a major conflicting cause of war in a generalized subject of branding. Being able to draw this lead war causing subject, it was relieving in a self-expressing way to carve the conflict itself, more so to draw its solution. Even though my idea of a solution is extract and far off from reality, it was exhilarating to carve my surrealistic print as a dream to are worldly conflicts. With this being my first carving and print, I find that I could have kept my symmetry as well as shapes in form with a little more shading and textures while carving on a bigger print to pay a little more attention to detail.



Rebecca H.

Artist Statement

The assignment for this project was to draw a conflict. After we drew the conflict we had to carve it. After we carved it we had to make prints. What I think about this project is that it was sort of difficult to show a conflict. Before I started on this art project I had to come up with a conflict. I came up with the idea by listening to music. The steps in making this work of art that were most important to me were carving. One part of the process that was a little difficult for me was coming up with a conflict and displaying it.

            My conflict represents how music has become vulgar. That music used to be really good and meant something and how it has fallen and people just make random music with no meaning. I used different techniques. Such as, patterns, sizes, and textures. My main focus on the piece of art is that the music is falling down and breaking apart.

            When I was doing my art work I made sure that I showed different textures. I also made sure I used different sizes to emphasis the textures. The use of these element and principles helped me create visual emphasis by using different numbers with the carving tool.

            To conclude, I did not enjoy doing this project. I did not enjoy it because I couldn’t come up with anything good. My art work didn’t come out that good. We didn’t have enough time to work on it. I want to improve on my ideas and carving next time. The best part about my piece is the music stance.

Mike M.

Artist Statement

            This assignment for this project was to pick a conflict that is currently happening throughout the world. Global warming was the conflict I had picked because it is a conflict that affects the whole world. Before I started on this art project I had to look up current conflicts that are throughout the world. The steps in making this work of art that were most important to me were the creation of the drawing and bringing my own ideas in my art. One part of the process that was a little difficult for me was finding a conflict to choose. And I overcame this by looking up different conflicts and comparing them.

            My global warming conflict represents the world melting by the sun. The main theme is to show that the whole world is affected by this conflict. This theme is interesting to me because it’s a conflict that people don’t realize that can be a major problem in the future. I used different textures to emphasize the world and the world melting from the sun. I made this part the focus because it’s not just one part of the world that this conflict takes place, it’s the entire world.

            When I was doing my global warming conflict I made sure that I added textures to emphasize the world melting. I also used different patterns to separate the land from the water on the world. The use of these elements and principles helped me create visual emphasis by creating the shape of the world and creating the shape of it melting.

            I really did not enjoy this project because I had trouble transferring the ink from the block to the paper. The ink did not really transfer that well to the paper, it was always too faded or too much ink. Also the amount of prints we had to do was hard to do in the short amount time we had. The best part about my piece is that it’s original and it easily shows the conflict that I’m trying to make a statement about.

Brooklynn P.

  

Artist Statement

This assignment for the "conflict" is about wolves and how it's effecting the farmers crops and

stock. Wolves are beautiful creatures and don't deserve the punishment. The wolves are

trying to survive in the wild and are doing what they need to do.. There are a ton of cattle and not

enough wolves.. they will go extinct if the farmers keep killing the wolves. I'm trying to send a message to people that killing wolves is wrong no matter the reason.

My "Fragile Angels" conflict represents protecting wolves from extinction from farmers killing wolves. The theme is wolves and cattle conflict. I used imagination and researching body language of wolves in order to make this art piece a success.

When I was doing my artwork, I used Pattern, Rhythm  and movement. I enjoyed creating the fighting wolves, it was a ton of fun to create.

I enjoyed the whole drawing wolves and creating a ton of texture, I put a ton of detail into my art piece. I'm really disapointed in how most of the detail didn't show but it was still a blast to draw.