This project is made to try new things and expand your horizons with a project of your choice. I went through quite a few different stages to figure out what I wanted to do for this project, experimenting first before making my decision. I decided to try a new method, called Linocut Printing.
My 21st century skills that I can link this to are:
– Self direction: I want to do better when it comes to planning & time-management. A project with many moving parts & processes seems like the right way to do it.
– Risk taking: This is not a forgiving process. I want to learn how to deal with failure. The margin for error in this process is high, so I need to figure out how to deal with mistakes without beating myself up, and instead finding a way forward.
These are tests for my project. This project is mostly playing around with negative space, so your design really matters. Words and lettering are especially hard as they have to be reversed before they are carved. I learned this the hard way and messed up several whole stamps.
I chose all my photos that I wanted to re-create with stamps, then made digital tracings/concepts for them that I could more easily translate and transfer to the stamps:
My chosen images & digital tracings.
I then transferred the design to the rubber. I tried many different methods, but landed on tracing them with pencil on baking paper, then transfering them with a penny/coin.
Then all that was left was to carve the negative space. Here is what my final stamps looked like:
The printing process was messy and difficult, but I finally figured out the trick. Using speedball ink, I transferred the design onto paper, and then onto a sweatshirt, as I enjoy wearing my designs.
Here is my final design:
Poetry Production:
I also produced a poem during this unit. This also included reading the poem out loud, as well as recording it to turn into an animation.
I wrote a poem about Laïka, a dog who was sent into space during Russian space testing.
Canis Lupus Familiaris
Princess of the stars,
Lost, and never found,
Your soul is in the cosmos,
Never to be homebound.
Under Saturn’s rings you nap,
And meteors you fetch.
At nebulae your tail wags and swipes
And in the void of space you stretch.
We all miss you dearly,
Patron saint – of one-way trips,
And every day you guide us,
Though the cold of space, it nips.
Finally, your days are endless,
Mongrel of Moscow’s streets,
Conqueror of space, you died,
And in my heart yours beats.
So thank you for your sacrifice,
To know the final frontier
Do you see us from your window?
Earth, the perfect blue sphere.
We miss you, Little bug,
And we’re terribly sorry,
That we’ve left you ‘tween Orion’s belt
And Alpha Centauri
And long live your sacrifice,
Lovely space dog, Laïka,
We hope that you forgive us,
Canis Lupus Liberta.
The tone of my poem isn’t incredibly happy, but I wanted a cute, lighthearted animation to make it a little bit more positive. It depicts the dog that I speak about in my poem, happy and floating in space, very on-theme.
I enjoyed writing the poem, it was fun and fairly simple. Figuring out how to animate the dog was the most difficult part. At first, I only had the tail wagging, and it felt a bit boring. So I also made the legs move, which also felt a bit too stagnant. So I had to completely start over, making the body move a bit, like floating around in space. Finally, I liked the look of that, so I looped the video and had to map the words of the poem into the little box I added to my background. So really, I just did what I found looked nice!