Title: The supported
Size: 30.5 cm x 22.9 cm Medium: Ink on paper Completion date: September 2023 Exhibition Text: I created this piece to showcase moving on from difficult emotions and relationships with the help of friends and support. I took special inspiration from Kathe Kollwitz in this piece, more specifically, her piece titled, The Volunteers (Die Freiwilligen) from War (Krieg). By combining my theme with her style, I was able harness the painful emotions and showcase them through my work, much like my inspiration. By carving out and printing a block print, it made the process feel more personal, and it made the process closer to that of Kollwitz as well. The original piece I have as inspiration was made to portray the loss of kids as they sign up for war, it's a heavy piece with strong emotions, so I wanted to take this as an opportunity to still have a more heavy portrayal, while still making a piece on self-growth. |
Inspiration
I chose to have Kathe Kollwitz as my inspiration because of how emotional her art it. Kollwitz uses her art as an outlet for the overwhelming emotions she's feeling, as is evident with her Piece, The Volunteers, which portrays young men going to war just to die. This is pulled from a personal experience of hers, where her son goes to war, ultimately resulting in his death. For obvious reasons, this became overwhelming for her, and that becomes extremely visible in her art with the pained and crying expressions. I wanted to use emotion similarly to this, however, I wanted to make a more positive piece, portraying growth and support after hard times. It shows a mental battle instead of a physical one. Kollwitz has a very personal and intimate medium for art in the piece I took the most inspiration, which is block printing. Printing this way is extremely personal because you're putting your weight into the carving, you're the one cutting away every single piece. Block printing has various different steps to it, giving the artist even more time to think about their work and what it's about, and much like Kollwitz, I wanted to use this medium to emulate that intimacy as well.
Recently, I've been going through a lot of trouble, and was really struggling to move forward, but the people around me are the reason I have been able to make any progress whatsoever. I wanted to showcase how the support of others is what truly helps one the most, even after trauma and suffering. Kollwitz has always had an incredible style that can express strong emotions and suffering incredibly well, and now, I have chosen to utilize that style to express my own experiences .
|
The Volunteers (Die Freiwilligen) from War (Krieg) by Käthe Kollwitz
The Parents (Die Eltern) from War (Krieg) by Käthe Kollwitz
|
Planning & Experimentation
I had already started this piece with a relative plan in mind, which meant that I wasn't really going to need a whole lot of sketching, or at least I thought so. Turns out, this piece was a little more complicated than I had planned, so it took much more time than I would've liked to get the actually planing phase for the project done.
To start planning this project and make me feel a little less overwhelmed, I chose to sketch the facial expressions first. I have fun drawing faces, especially when they're exaggerated the way they are in this piece. When sketching them out, I would start with pencil, making sure I liked how sharp or soft I would make the expressions, after which, I would use a sharpie and re-sketch out the face to make sure I was happy with how it looked when in flat black and white. I really wanted to showcase different emotions from the past in the faces portraying negative emotions, so I tried not to stray too much from that of the original work I was taking inspiration from. I also made sure that the faces with the negative emotions had a scratchier look with more black.For the faces with the more positive emotions such as support and growth, I wanted to use more flat color instead of having an overwhelmingly scratchy texture. By doing this, it makes the person portrayed seem more stable and less chaotic, keeping a contrast between them and the negative faces.
After the faces, I wanted to work on the hands a bit. I didn't want to include too many hands in the piece as they tend to be very detailed and take up much more time than I would like. Because of this, I chose to only include partial hands that don't have many details. It's also important to note that I did not want to have many details outside of the face, to focus the piece on the emotions and nothing else. This helped with carving a tremendous amount as well. When planning the positioning of the hands, I wanted to make the hand from the supporter to be more outreached, like it's reaching out to help the supported. In contrast to this, I wanted the hand coming from the past to be gripping the supported's arm, as if not wanting to let go. |
When it came to experimentation, there wasn't a whole lot I needed to do. I already had gone through this process twice before, the only difference was what was in the print itself. With that being said, I did experiment a little this time with using a barren in contrast to the printing press. Initially, I decided to go with the barren because that was has always worked best for me in the past, but after several prints that turned out very bad, I decided to give the printing press a change. For the first time in all of the block prints I've made, I preferred working with the printing press. The ink looked more even and more would go on. I have a theory as to why this worked better this time as well. This is the first block print that I've made with this much flat black in the background, meaning I would need to more a considerable amount more of pressure to get similar results. The printing press is simply able to put more pressure than I am.
In the end, I was happiest with the results using the printing press.
Process
I am well aware that this is something I say with ever project I make, ESPECIALLY my block prints, but this piece was very frustrating and took very long to make. The process of making block prints has always driven me insane, but I am almost always happy with how they turn out in the end, so I keep making them. Luckily, however, this is likely the last block print that I am going to make as a project for school, as I was making this and the previous one for my comparative study to have a similar process as my artist, Kathe Kollwitz.
To start making this piece, I sketched out a plan over a long period of time. I continued to put it off because working on the faces portraying strong negative emotions tended to take a toll on me, affecting my mental health pretty heavily. These faces were consistently reminding me of things I had experienced in the past that I am no longer interested in reliving, so I would really struggle while making them. Luckily, they were relatively simple to sketch and I didn't want to include too many, so it went by fast after I got into the swing of things.
Once I finally got through my planning sketched, I was time for me to do the final full sketch onto a separate sheet of paper. This also took some time for reasons similar to the planning phase, but once I got through it, I scribbled on the back of the paper with graphic to get it ready to transfer the sketch onto the linoleum sheet. To transfer the sketch, I taped the paper graphite side down, onto the sheet and drew on top of the lines with pen. While this does transfer the sketch, the lines are much wider and are easy to rub off while carving. To combat the graphite from rubbing off, I would usually go over the sketch again with ink, however, I was starting to run out of time and decided to go with the flow.
Once I finally got through my planning sketched, I was time for me to do the final full sketch onto a separate sheet of paper. This also took some time for reasons similar to the planning phase, but once I got through it, I scribbled on the back of the paper with graphic to get it ready to transfer the sketch onto the linoleum sheet. To transfer the sketch, I taped the paper graphite side down, onto the sheet and drew on top of the lines with pen. While this does transfer the sketch, the lines are much wider and are easy to rub off while carving. To combat the graphite from rubbing off, I would usually go over the sketch again with ink, however, I was starting to run out of time and decided to go with the flow.
Once I got the sketch down, it was finally time for me to begin the process of carving. This is usually the shortest part for me, and this remained true with this project as well. I quickly carved everything out, improvising a few times when the graphite rubbed off, and was done! The only step left was to print, which I started doing with the barren. The issue with the barren was the prints that I did it with all came out too light and extremely splotchy. After taking far too long to realize it was probably the type of tool I was using, I decided to give the printing press a shot. Low and behold, the printing press worked! With the printing press it only took a few more tries to get the perfect print.
Critique
Original Work
|
I did a lot to stray away from the original work while still maintaining a similar style, this is mostly because I had known from the beginning that this piece was going to have a much more positive theme. To start, there are various similarities to explore with this piece, most notably, the style. I did my best to maintain a similar line weight to Kollwitz's piece, I wanted it to look like something that had come from the same collection. I also wanted to maintain a similar composition. In Kollwitz's piece, she has a general line guiding the viewer's eye through the piece, starting from one side, leading them to the other, I tried my best to demonstrate this in my work as well, using similar methods.
|
The Volunteers (Die Freiwilligen) from War (Krieg) by Käthe Kollwitz
|
In contrast to Kollwitz's piece, however, I changed the theme to something the highlights growth in spite of trying times. I wanted to show that even if someone has had a difficult past, there is still room to grow, especially with the help of others. Kollwitz's pieces, especially from this collection, are about loss and the trying times and emotions that one might go through. Aside from the theme, there were also a few visual differences as well, most notably being how my work looks slightly "scratchier" so to speak. Overall, though, I believe there was a clear connection and I was able to showcase her work well.
Reflection
Original Work
|
When creating this piece, there were many different things that I struggled with. My biggest issue was with motivation, I've never been a big fan of planning out my block prints, and this is what hurt my motivation even more than just regular procrastination. This led to me taking even longer with starting the project, taking longer to transfer the sketch, and taking longer with just making quality work overall. I don't think there was much development as an artist, the only real thing that I learned was how to use the printing press again, and that was just something that I had already learned in the past that I had forgotten. This project is extremely similar to my previous project, as they both have the same artist for inspiration because they're for my comparative study. I was eager to finish this project, as I was running behind it, and didn't really take the time to enjoy the process, in the end, my favorite part turned out to be the relief I felt when finishing the project. Overall, it's my hope that people will see that with the help of others, they can learn and grow from hard times.
|
ACT Questions
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
- By choosing Kathe Kollwitz as my inspiration, it was almost automatic that I was going to create a block print, it's the medium that I, and many others, feel work best with her style. This meant that my work was going to turn out having clearly defined shapes that are a bit more abstract. Having Kollwitz as inspiration also meant that I was more likely to choose a heavier topic for my theme, as the theme for the artwork I chose as my strongest inspiration has such a heavy topic as well.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- Kollwitz has made many works regarding loss and others' reactions to it, this is something she resonates closely with, especially due to the loss of her son.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- I found that many people have this idealized version of war playing in their heads, which is in complete contrast to what Kollwitz shows, which is how gruesome and horrible war can be.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
- I wanted to look into something related to war when choosing my artists for my comparative study, as I wanted to translate physical battle into mental battle in my works. So the central theme in my research for this projects was loss from war.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
- I had to infer whether or not the works I was looking at were really created as a result of the loss of Kathe Kollwitz's son. Most of the works I was looking at showed emotions such as anger and mourning, so it seemed pretty clear that they were, but I never ofund anything that set that information into stone.
- By choosing Kathe Kollwitz as my inspiration, it was almost automatic that I was going to create a block print, it's the medium that I, and many others, feel work best with her style. This meant that my work was going to turn out having clearly defined shapes that are a bit more abstract. Having Kollwitz as inspiration also meant that I was more likely to choose a heavier topic for my theme, as the theme for the artwork I chose as my strongest inspiration has such a heavy topic as well.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
- Kollwitz has made many works regarding loss and others' reactions to it, this is something she resonates closely with, especially due to the loss of her son.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
- I found that many people have this idealized version of war playing in their heads, which is in complete contrast to what Kollwitz shows, which is how gruesome and horrible war can be.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
- I wanted to look into something related to war when choosing my artists for my comparative study, as I wanted to translate physical battle into mental battle in my works. So the central theme in my research for this projects was loss from war.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
- I had to infer whether or not the works I was looking at were really created as a result of the loss of Kathe Kollwitz's son. Most of the works I was looking at showed emotions such as anger and mourning, so it seemed pretty clear that they were, but I never ofund anything that set that information into stone.
Citations
- Meyer, Isabella. “German Expressionism - One of the Greatest German Art Movements.” Artincontext.Org, 28 July 2023, artincontext.org/german-expressionism/.
- “‘The Volunteers’, Käthe Kollwitz, 1921–2.” Tate, 2019, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kollwitz-the-volunteers-p82460.
- “‘The Volunteers’, Käthe Kollwitz, 1921–2.” Tate, 2019, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kollwitz-the-volunteers-p82460.