{"id":264,"date":"2022-06-12T10:16:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-12T17:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jocelync\/?p=264"},"modified":"2022-06-17T00:44:56","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T07:44:56","slug":"task-4-potato-printing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/jocelync\/task-4-potato-printing\/","title":{"rendered":"Task 4: Potato printing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This post consists of two parts: A documentation of the process, and my reflection on the process.<\/p>\n

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Process<\/h2>\n

1. Identify word:<\/strong> I wanted to find a word that would be easy to carve, so I looked up a scrabble word finder and put in letters consisting of straight lines only. I decided on the word “THINK”.
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2. Create stencil:<\/strong> I opened up Illustrator, typed in my word, chose my favourite sans serif font (again, for easier carving!), mirrored the word, and printed it out. I also did two sizes so I would have options considering the size of the potatoes.
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3.\u00a0 Prepare ‘letterpress’:<\/strong> I cut out my letter stencils, and also cut the side of the potatoes that would be carved into to the same size.
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4. Carve letters:<\/strong> I carved the letters into the potatoes.
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5. Put letters together:<\/strong> I originally planned to stick the skewers through the potatoes to hold them together, but it turned out to be very challenging. I then thought to glue the potatoes themselves together, but it did not hold whatsoever. I ended up cutting the backs of the stamps to the same size and gluing the backs to the skewers.
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6. Print:<\/strong> Once the glue dried, I prepared the ink, and used the ends of the skewers as ‘handles’ in stamping the word onto the sheet of paper.
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Reflection<\/h2>\n

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I was particularly excited about this task! My undergrad was in visual art and I recently bought supplies to try to pick back up on block printing, so this task served perfectly as practice.<\/p>\n

In reflecting on my process, a few themes jump out at me:<\/p>\n

Existing knowledge (and its influence)<\/h4>\n

It\u2019s been years since I\u2019ve done block printing and I would\u2019ve said I don\u2019t recall how to do it at all, but upon reflecting on my process, I may have retained more than I realized. This reminds me of Lamb\u2019s (2021) point about the influence of existing knowledge in that since we\u2019re \u201cnot a scroll-based culture, \u2026 we imagine the regular use of scroll as being somewhat alien and clumsy\u201d (Lamb & McCormick, 2021) \u2013 except in my case it\u2019s the reverse, in that I hadn\u2019t considered how much my previous experience influenced my approach, such as:<\/p>\n