Final: Diane the Cat
I have a cat and her name is Diane, and I love her a lot and I think she is so cute. I wanted to do another etching as my final because I actually like the project a lot. I took a picture that I had taken of her and I sketched it out and used it as my base photo. I had a lot more difficulties that I ran into with this one than I did with the first etching I ever made. Doing a cat who has so much fur made it a little difficult to make her be flat black. The first couple of times I did the printing I wiped off too much ink within her body, so the last and final one I did I made sure not to wipe as much off. This helped a lot with making it so she actually looked a solid color. If I could do this project again I would, I would just make sure I started it sooner so I didn't stress myself out with the time crunch I had.
Horse Etching
When this project was first discussed in the class I thought I was going to hate it; however, I actually love it so far! I decided to do a horse because I have always loved them. I started off with a basic sketch on a sheet of paper that was the same size as the piece of plastic we were going to be carving into. Then, I took the plastic and taped it onto the paper so that way I had something to tell me where I was supposed to be carving so that way the whole process was easier instead of me trying to guess proportions for a second time on something that I couldn't just erase. Each picture is a different printing, and although some of them look the same, there are some slight differences. Since you obviously cannot shade with etching like you can with a pencil, I had to do crosshatching. This so far has been tricky because if my lines get carved too deep, too much ink gets stuck and makes it look bad. There were also a few times that when I wet the paper down that I didn't do it enough and it resulted in the ink not coming out onto the paper all the way and also for weird spotting to occur. I am still not done with this project at this moment, but when I am this will be updated with more pictures!
Ukrainian Eggs
The concept of making a Ukrainian egg scared me and still does. It is such a delicate project that requires non-shaky, soft hands. I had a very different idea in mind for my egg before I dropped it and it cracked, which was when the photo was taken. I will be updating this post with a sketch of what the design was on the egg, because at the point that the picture was taken a lot of it was covered with wax and you couldn't tell what it was. I have a cat and her name is Diane, and we just got her last October. I love her and I wanted to put a picture of a black cat looking at a butterfly on the egg. There were going to be different sections of different colors. If I could do this project again, I would for sure be more cautious (more so than I already was being) when handling the egg since clearly they are so fragile.