Above: Thumbnails of Chestnut Hill Farm prints by St. Mark’s students. (Images from school website.)
Yesterday, I shared a blog with nature photos from Southborough. Today, I’m sharing another site with nature images from Southborough. But these aren’t snapshots.
St. Mark’s School’s website posted seven images of Chestnut Hill farm captured by student artists. The students engraved prints of farm images they sketched on their field trips to the farm in the fall.
Working outside encircled by the sounds, smells, wind, temperature and subject matter, students made several drawings and transferred them to Gomuban, a Japanese linoleum that is particularly suited to detail. Their task was to make a print that provides a strong sense of place and season, their experience of and in open space. Translating drawn language into a series of marks is a great challenge in this medium. Grey is achieved by cutting thin lines close together, mistakes are permanently recorded. The areas to be white need to be carved out— the opposite of drawing in pencil–and finally, the entire surface is reversed when printed. The composition has to be strong enough therefore, to be seen the opposite from how it was laid out on the block. Each student experimented with marks and contrast, developed a personal language to speak about depth, and watched as Artist-in-Residence Miss Blood developed a print using two blocks and color, from the same location. So A Ryu, working on a post-AP Studio Art Independent Study also joined the class for this assignment.
To see the prints online, visit the school website.
Want to see them up close? The actual prints are on display in the corridor outside the cafeteria entrance to the student Dining Hall.
These are absolutely gorgeous!