Artwork: Dry-Point Printmaking
Title: Thor Battling Jörmungandr
Size: 25.4 cm x 19.7 cm Medium: Dry-Point Printmaking and Watercolor Completion: November 20th, 2018 Thor Battling Jörmungandr is a dry-point print made using intaglio ink and watercolor that depicts a well-known myth from Scandinavian culture, which is one of the places that my ancestors are thought to be from. This piece was inspired by the use of line to depict a story in Franz Stassen's Thor Fishing for the World Serpent and Carl Emil Doepler's Thor Battles the Midgard Serpent. All materials were provided by the art teacher at Reagan High School.
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Inspiration
For my dry-point print I wanted to depict a story from part of my culture. I decided to the Norse culture, specifically Norwegian, and focused on the Mythological aspects of their culture. At first I wanted to do a piece about the Valkyries, a group of warrior women in their mythology, but then I saw the pieces Thor Battles the Midgard Serpent and Thor Fishing for the World Serpent and then I decide to focus on the myth of Thor and Jörmungandr. Thor is a hammer wielding god in their stories and Jörmungandr is a world serpent who is one of Loki's children. Jörmungandr was supposedly going to be the end of the world and end up swallowing it as he grew bigger, but he and Thor were enemies and fought whenever they encountered each other. In their final fight, Thor ends up killing Jörmungandr but not without getting bit first. This bite leads to the eventual death of Thor also. I liked the story depicted in each of the pieces and wanted to incorporate the use of dark, thick lines in the pieces in my own print.
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Planning
I researched the difference between the Thor I know in modern times and the Thor of the past that Scandinavian people would know. I also tried to convey Jörmungandr the way that I imagined while still keeping it accurate to the mythology.
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On the sketch to the right, I explored the different textures of the water and clouds by using crosshatching and other line patterns. It took several ideas and playing with texture through line to find the right details for my piece. I also researched the differences between the Marvel Thor and Norse Mythology Thor.
For my second sketch, I outlined the Plexiglas plate on the paper in my sketch book and started by drawing the scene of Thor and Jörmungandr. I drew darker lines wherever I thought I wanted to emphasize the specific feature of the image like on Stassen's Thor Fishing for the World Serpent, where he has darker patches of black and thicker lines to create emphasis and a feeling of unity in his piece. The overall unity of the piece was what I wanted to convey the most in my piece. |
Experimentation
It took five total prints to get my image to turn out the way I wanted it to. On some prints there were areas on the piece that ended up smudging and were hard to tell what they were. On other prints the image was too light and it was even harder to tell what I made in the image.
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Process
I let watercolor paper cut to the size a bit larger than the size of my plate sit in the water for exactly eight minutes. As the paper sat submerged, I pulled out the other tools. I placed newsprint paper over the area of the table in which I was working and ripped some more of the newsprint into strips. I then grabbed a jar of the intaglio ink, a palate knife, and a squeegee.
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After the eight minutes were up, I pulled the paper out of the water and let it partially dry on top of and under a clean rag. I then put on gloves and using the palate knife, I scooped a small amount of the intaglio ink onto the top of my plate. Then, I used the squeegee to pull the ink across the plate. Any extra ink I had on my squeegee, I scraped back into the container.
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Once the plate was finished being cleaned of extra intaglio ink, I went over to the etching press (with my gloves off in order to not get the press dirty) and lifted up the blankets. I placed a piece of newsprint under the blankets, placed my plate with the ink-side facing up on top of the newsprint paper. Then I placed my watercolor paper that I had soaked on top of the plate, making sure that the plate was centered on the paper before placing the blankets back down.
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Using both hands, I rolled the etching press over my plate and then back to the place that it was before. When rolling, I made sure to use a continuous roll to make sure that the print I was making did not get and extra breaks of lines in the print. Once I rolled the etching press back to it's starting position, I lifted the blankets up again and carefully lifted the watercolor paper off of the plate and put it onto the dry rack. I took my inked plate off of the press along with the newsprint paper before cleaning my plate with newsprint papers. To clean the tables and other tools I used Mineral Spirits.
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When the watercolor paper was dry of my final print, I decided to put watercolor on it to help maintain a sense of unity between the different aspects of the piece. Before I water-colored the print, I kept the print in a book in order to flatten it out completely since it had bent while it was drying on the drying rack. I used my personal watercolor set, a size 3 brush, paper towels, and a cup of water.
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Then, using a small amount of the black watercolor paint I painted the clouds so that they looked like a gray instead of just a straight up, dark black. I also painted the ocean by using baby blue and adding details for the waves with navy blue, white, black, and cerulean blue. I then let my piece dry completely before moving it in case any of the paint was too watery still.
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Reflection
Compare & Contrast
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Similarities
Differences
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CritiqueI think that this piece has been one of my favorites that I have finished so far. The watercolor created a great sense of unity for the piece. If I redid the piece, then I would use less watercolor on the background or mute the colors with more water in order to emphasize Thor and Jörmungandr more and allow the printed lines on the background to show up better. If I had a lot longer to do the print, I would redo the actual plate of the piece to create better lines and a better print later on.
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ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The use of line to create emphasis and unity in Franz Stassen's Thor Fishing for the World Serpent and Carl Emil Doepler's Thor battles the Midgard Serpent inspired me in the way that I used deeper, darker lines to emphasize Thor and Jörmungandr versus the rest of the piece. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? Daniel McCoy evaluates the story of Thor and Jörmungandr and explains where the story comes from and which specific groups of people passed on the story. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? I concluded that while some depictions may be different in line, shape, and color, many of the pieces like my inspirations showed the story in similar ways which means that it connected with many artists and their ideas. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?. The central idea of my research was to find an interesting story that showed an aspect of my culture. The mythological beliefs and religion in culture is what drew me to it the most. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? I inferred that mythology and other themes about kinds of religion in the world are a common theme in art along with culture. I also concluded that artists tend to have similar ideas, but the actual details on the piece are what makes it truly unique. |
BibliographyBritannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Valkyrie.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 15 Dec. 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/Valkyrie-Norse-mythology.
McCoy, Daniel. “Jormungand.” Norse Mythology for Smart People, norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/giants/jormungand/. McCoy, Daniel. “Thor Fishing for the World Serpent.” Norse Mythology for Smart People, 10 July 2018, norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/thor-fishing-for-the-world-serpent/. “Themes in Old Norse Mythological Art.” Classic Illustrations from Norse Mythology, www.germanicmythology.com/works/TMThorsFishing.html. |