Stefany Alicea

Meghan Healy
Printmaking
End of Course
Printmaking is transferring a picture or pattern into another material by using paints on the
carving on the heavy solid material and switching it over to paper.. Explained in a simpler manner,
printmaking is when you carve a picture or pattern on a block (or any other material that can be carved
in) and then transfer the picture onto a piece of paper using paint to show the textures and such.
Two ways that you can do printmaking are: silk screening/ stencil printing and carving. Silk
printing is usually how you would get a design on a t-shirt. You do it through a screen and put a mark
(stickers) for your negative or positive space (depending on the wanted image) and the place paint on
the top and press it down with a squiggie. This results in pushing the paint through the places where
there arent stickers to stop the paint from passing through the screen. The second way is carving. You
would take a piece of wood or a carving block and carve a picture or a pattern you want. Then you put
paint on it then press it down on a piece of paper so the pattern will stick.
My favorite lesson was definitely the carving. I like it when my work is time consuming because I
can really get into it, and this project was just that. The first part, the carving part, took almost all of the
time. At first we designed what we were going to carve. Then we got a piece of a carving block/paper(?)
and started carving. At first I was a bit scared because the tools were dangerous, but after I got the hang
of it I enjoyed it. The technical skills I learned in this were: carving, silk screening, and how to print
something off a carving. I learned carving by applying it to different materials. In one of the lessons we
even carved on erasers. I can print a design on a screen. I can do this by the skills I explain recently.
What I learned about myself through this is that I enjoy printmaking, and even though I do, it is
not my favorite type of art. I like drawing/painting more. Like I stated before, I like work that takes a
while to do and you have to put some effort in to get a quality product in the end. Another less insightful
lesson, was how hard it was to get paint off anything. The clothes that got stained with paint were hard
to clean properly; my nails and hands were usually always covered in paint, no matter how many hand
washes were performed, at the end of school on Thursdays. All in all, this class was great and I am glad I
took it.