Dry Point
Exhibition TextThis piece depicts an image of a feather dripping away. It was inspired by the artistic style of Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" and created with the technique of dry point. Salvador Dali painted images from his dreams which is what I tried to do in my piece. I’ve had a reoccurring dream that I am falling. I don’t know where I am falling from or where I’m falling to. All I know is that I’m falling and I attempted to depict this dream using this distorted feather.
Planning My goal for this piece was to depict a reoccurring dream I've had since I was little. In this dream I am falling from nowhere and to nowhere which is a tricky thing to describe. I attempted to represent this dream by using a feather. I started planning by creating a series of miniature feather designs as seen in the first sketch. I then took what I learned from the small scale designs and created two possible ideas to go forward with. Both had combined elements from the previously created series of feathers. The first was pretty straight forward but I liked the idea of having the feather split. After sketching out the split feather I decided to go with the first sketch because I felt like that feather gave a better image of what I was trying to depict.
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The Fall
12.7 cm x 17.8 cm Dry Point October-November 2016 |
Inspiration
Dali, Salvador. Persistence of Memory. 1931. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Dali, Salvador. Sleep. 1937. Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Surrealism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016. https://www.britannica.com/art/Surrealism. "Surrealism." The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016. http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm "The Persistence of Memory." Museum of Modern Art. MoMA, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016. |
This piece was inspired by the Surrealist movement. Surrealists attempted to go against rationalism and rather focused on expressing their imaginations. They combined dreams and fantasy with what we consider reality. Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Rene Magritte, and Salvador Dali are some Surrealist painters. Each of their works are very different due to the fact that the see and imagine things differently. They create their works through self-exploration which means all of their pieces will be quite different.
Salvador Dali was the biggest inspiration for this piece. Dali took objects and things we can recognize in reality and would take them and put them out of context which makes you question reality. This was a goal of the surrealists, to make you question reality and what we consider rationalism. Imagery in surrealism is a trademark. Each painter had a motif that would show up often in their pieces. Salvador Dali’s were ant’s and eggs. You could claim that another could be clocks which is seen in his piece “The Persistence of Memory”. This piece of his is specifically what inspired me. It is a dream scape which was really inspiring because I can absolutely picture this being a dream or in an imagination. I too tried to do the same but rather than creating a dreamlike landscape, I used a feather to symbolize a dream. The reason I chose a feather is because I felt like it fit my dream extremely well. In this reoccurring dream, I am falling, but I don’t know from where or where to. The other aspect I thought about is that I don’t feel worried or scared, it is just a smooth free fall which is kind of how I picture a feather falling. A feather in a way falls swiftly or calmly in a way. I also took the melting component of Dali’s piece by making the feather drip away in order to convey more of a falling sensation. |
Process
ReflectionProcess: This piece turned out well, but the printing was very challenging. It took a lot of trial and error in order to get a decent print. Even after getting the hang of the adding and removing the ink, it was still challenging to get the prints to turn out due to the pressure of the press being too high. You can tell by looking at the image of the press (ninth image) in my process. The pressure was too high which is what caused the news print to wrinkle.
Meaning: The meaning of my piece was to depict a reoccurring dream I have. I don't believe that this was a super clear way to depict the concept of falling, but I think the fact that it is meant to be a dream can be observed in the unrealistic drops from the melting feather. I think that the meaning of my piece was partially met, but it still needs some extra explanation to fully understand the question "why". Critique The process of my piece is extremely different from my inspiration. I used the style of Dali's Persistence of Memory in the droplets falling from the feather, but other than that there are not many aspects that are visually inspired. The meaning of my piece has the most inspiration from surrealism and Dali. Both my piece and many of Dali's works are images from the imagination or dreams. The ideas are similar, and the idea of Surrealism was self-exploration which made all the works unique.
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The first step, as usual, was to sketch the image that was to be carved into the glass plate. Once the desired image was complete, I removed the plastic protection from the plate and placed it above the drawing. I then began to carve the design into the glass by cutting and scraping the plate. This was challenging at first and I experimented a little on the side that I wasn't using. I first carved the outline of the feather in order t make sure the shape was how I desired. I then continued by filling in the shape with the feather texture that was mostly created with the repetition of line. On the droplets, I crosshatched the leftmost side in order to convey their spherical form. This would complete the carving process. I then had to begin the printing process which was for the most part trial and error and took very much experimentation. I first had to put the paper into warm water for about six minutes to loosen the fibers in order for the oil based ink to be absorbed. Then I had to take the ink and force it into the cracks as seen in the fifth image. After this, the goal was to remove the ink from the surface without removing it from the scratched out crevices. This was done by taking news print and wiping away the excess inc. This process would determine how the final print turned out. I experimented with how much ink to put on the plate to begin with, and I found out that the less you use, the better it turns out. I also had to experiment how much pressure and how long I needed to wipe the plate. This was the most difficult part because sometimes the ink was pulled out of the plate when I didn't want it to be. After the ink was removed, I placed the plate under the paper, wrapped them both in newsprint, and used the press to print the piece.
ACT Connection 1. My inspiration lead me to finding an interesting way to symbolize my imagination which can be seen in my piece as a feather depicting a reoccurring dream.
2. Salvador Dali attempted to take the rational world and make it appear irrational to the rest of the world. It was his self-exploration into his own imagination. 3. Realism may not always be the truth. We all view the world differently and what may seem real to one person may not be real to another (TOK). 4. The main theme was dreams and imagination. Surrealism has a major emphasis on portraying your dreams using your imagination because it defies the rational world and logic. 5. Not everything is as it seems and like I said before, people view certain situations or objects differently especially when using their imagination. |
Dali, Salvador. Persistence of Memory. 1931. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Dali, Salvador. Sleep. 1937. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
"Surrealism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016. https://www.britannica.com/art/Surrealism.
"Surrealism." The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016. http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm
"The Persistence of Memory." Museum of Modern Art. MoMA, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016
Dali, Salvador. Sleep. 1937. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
"Surrealism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016. https://www.britannica.com/art/Surrealism.
"Surrealism." The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016. http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm
"The Persistence of Memory." Museum of Modern Art. MoMA, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2016