So school and research as usual have been time blackholes.  Also, Red Cross has been making me pretty busy also…the girl who shared my position with me resigned because she had way too much on her plate (car accident lead to her need to take on a second job to pay things off ((…fortunately she is physically fine though).

So one of the things that has been exciting me and consuming my time is my thesis project!  My project is a group effort to basically create art based off of our inspirations of certain words.  The first project I created was inspired off of epiphany (imagine how I felt when I came up with the idea…(!)).  Here’s an overall look:

The colors here don’t show up as vibrantly because of the glare.  But basically I had a subject that I tried to evoke three expressions from: thinking, surprise/confusion that comes with the process, and finally epiphany.  These faces were used as the lights and color adjusted using Photoshop.  I also wanted the background to be filled with light bulbs because they practically symbolize epiphany.  Below, I have a picture of part of my supplies/work station (on the floor!)

Here’s a close up of the linocut print:

For the light bulb image, I used a technique called Linocut.  My friend was obsessed with printmaking and her excitement kind of inspired me to try it out myself.  So I carved a light bulb onto linoleum and applied ink with a brayer to smooth out and thin out the ink, and stamped it.

I didn’t take pictures of the process of making the light bulb cut, but I have one for hearts.  I was going to make Valentine’s cards again this year, but turns out school (etc.) absorbed all my time, and no cards were completed or sent out …but here’s an idea of what I was going to make:

Step 1: cut a heart

Step 2 : Ink it!

Step 3: Apply it to material

Step 4: Remove cut

Step 5: Cut larger heart

Step 6: Ink with different colors — produces layers!

Result:

=) It’s nice because it is cute, hand done, but also mass-producible.  But the time consuming part (besides cutting and waiting for paint to dry) is trying to think of how to make them all different despite a common stamp.  But I didn’t have time unfortunately.  Maybe for next year, or to be sent at random.  ^^