Digital Printmaking

We are making our way through Digital Printmaking, the second section of my Printmaking course this fall semester. We've made digital prints using photoshop and scanned images. I've also gotten a chance to do some fun photoshop tutorials. This picture I did below was a "city ink" style tutorial that makes any picture look urban and 'popping fresh'! I thought it would be hilarious to do it with one of my French Rococo Pirate costume pictures. Here's what I would look like as a pirate in some cool city!



Right now we're working on books. Everyone is making a 20 page book in photoshop that we will send to lulu.com to get published. I'm so excited about this project. Even when I was in etching, I had heard a rumor that in digital we made books and knew immediately what I was going to do. I started taking photos and drawing/painting images early on! The idea or concept behind my book is based on a phenomenon I encountered last year: I noticed all of these picturesque scenes in Richmond that if you boxed out the rest of the city surrounding it, the building or whatever it is doesn't even look like it's in Richmond. Sometimes buildings look like a tower in Germany or, as I like think of them, holes into Faerie. That's when my concept really takes off. I'm going to emphasized these non-Richmond cites and describe them as holes or portals into the Faerie world with creatures coming out and mortals getting trapped in. The book is a journey of discovery; it starts off with pictures of just Richmond, then progresses to distorted pictures of Richmond that focus primarily on the interesting building or feature, and then the faeries take over. My sister has written up poems to accompany my book, one being the introduction. It's amazing how perfect her poems are for my book when she hasn't actually seen any of the pages or sketches!

Here are some spreads from my book (by spreads I mean the two corresponding pages, so imagine them divided down the middle as they would be in a book). Enjoy!