When was I going to learn these new skills

The Head of Art teacher in my school agreed for me to go into the art department during my Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes and after school too, to do some printmaking. This should give me enough time to develop my own arts practice and hopefully create some pieces of work that are of good quality. Having an art teacher around is going benefit me because I would be able to receive and help that I need. Plus, as I have never done this before, I need to be shown what to do at first and my teacher is able to do this.

What is Printmaking?

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking is looked upon to be unique and original, except in the case of monotyping. The monotyping process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a 'print'. Each piece produced is not a copy but considered an original since it is not a reproduction of another work of art. Printmaking (other than monotyping) is not chosen only for its ability to produce multiple impressions, but rather for the unique qualities that each of the printmaking processes lends itself to.

I was involved in two types of printing, planographic and monotyping.

Planographic is basic printmaking were you draw an image onto a flat surface (on paper) on top of a layer of ink. When you over the paper you will see the ink on your paper, but only over where you imprinted the lines. You can only create your image once using the one piece of paper. This type of printing does not allow you to make multiples.

Monotyping is printing onto a raised surface. This allows you to have different shades of colour on your artwork along with the opportunity to re-print the same image. If you go over your image again with more ink, and then print on more paper, you will see practically the exact same thing as before. However there will be differences between them, this is why it is not an exact copy, it is just a print.

Francisco Goya. Artists, Spanish, Painter. Was an inspiration to many people like Francis Bacon and Picasso.

Unit 1 - Part A

Part A - extend your own arts practice.

For this section of the course you needed to develop new skills.

This is not un-common to me as this is what happens when you decide to explore a new path in life.

Printing is what I chose to learn more about. My former art teacher, and current photography teacher introduced me to this. I thought that this would be good idea because I haven't done it before. I felt like it would be quite fun and challenging at the same time.

Introduction

I am an A-Level Photography student. I have studied art all through my secondary school life, including at GCSE. I have always felt the need to experiment, so taking Art would enable me to do this. I chose Photography at A-Level because it was something that I hadn't done before. I never realised how many different elements there are in photography before I studied it. As my research continued throughout the course I found various artists that are quite inspirational to me. This lead me into developing my own style of work.

When I heard about my school doing the Arts Award I felt like this is something in which I had to be apart of. I wanted to develop my skills and practices further.