I have begun to write my first draft of the first essay on my chosen topic; Printmaking. I have written about 1/3rd so far and will continue throughout the week. I got one of my peers to read through my essay in order to gain some feedback.
The essay draft so far:
Context of Practice: Print making essay 1
Throughout this essay, I will briefly attempt to talk about the history of print making. In terms of how it started off, the early methods and what it was first used for; political, social and historical uses. I will do this by researching through sources which include books, websites, and articles.
The art of print making originates from China over 2000 years ago. At that time, it was used for political, social and historical ideas, it is now a form of art. “Since the 14th Century, multi-colour printing was done. Printmaking came to a new prime during the Ming Period (1368 - 1644). A pioneer of printing with colours, especially gradations, and embossing was the official and artist Hu Cheng Yen (1582 - 1672)” Chinese woodblock making- http://www.druckstelle.info/en/holzschnitt_china.aspx, 2017.
Printing making first started out as ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tables in China. “The emperor of China commands, in AD 175, that the six main classics of Confucianism be carved in stone. His purpose is to preserve them for posterity in what is held to be authentic version of the text. But his enterprise has zan unexpected result” History of printing, Engraved texts: 2nd - 8th century AD - http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab78
As time went of, it then quickly spread to other countries around Asia. However, the Chinese used only clay and wood movable type at first, but by the 13th century, Korea developed print making to be used in metal. The Western-style of printing travelled to East Asia by the 16th century but was properly used until many centuries later.
Print making first started to come into light in the late fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth century in Italy; at this time, Italy had a huge thorough history in the production of valuable and impressive print makers of international repute. “European countries valued the art of Italy above all others” Italian Prints 1875-1975- Martin Hopkinson,2007.
An example of an extremely popular and contemporary print making technique that is enjoyed today is collagraph printing. Collagraph prints are made by printing from a plate constructed on either mount board or very thin plywood. The texture is built up like a collage (hence the name collagraph) using a variety of mediums and then the plate is inked and printed using a roller press. There are many different ways of creating collagraph prints; intaglio- the plate can be printed below the surface with the ink in the lower parts of the plate, by rubbing over it, relief- the ink sitting on the higher parts of the plate and combination- using different tones or colours.
The feedback that I received:
-Title; name it e.g. The History of Printmaking
-Bibliography; Just need to collect all your sources at the end
-Images; already included, add a figure no. so you can relate to it in the text
-In text citations; good use of quotes to help guide you through the essay. Make sure you keep these when you create the bibliography
-The journey through the essay flows well, maybe make a reference to the Guttenberg Bible when talking about moveable type
-The description of collagraph starts good but feels like too much of a 'how-to', explain when it would be used and why it would be used instead maybe?
-Good references to research
-Maybe focus on a specific technique you want to try in the practical work?
