Today, I wanted to dedicate a master class for children to an interesting and one of the most ancient drawing techniques. We are talking about engraving, which can be the discovery of the great world of fine art for you and your child.
A creative streak has always been present in people and aroused the desire to leave their mark on various surfaces, which was the beginning of the creation of interesting and unusual drawing techniques. After all, what could be easier than scratching a drawing on a stone, clay tablet or wood? If you fill the grooves with paint, you get a bright pattern that will last for quite some time. Thus, one of the oldest drawing techniques, engraving, was born. She came from the jewelry business, all the tools and techniques are used by jewelers to this day. It is very versatile and includes many different performance techniques. This is linocut, and engraving on metal, on cardboard, woodcut and lithography. The advent of engraving technique served as an impetus for the creation of printing presses.
Many great artists paid great attention to engraving and created amazing and beautiful masterpieces. One of the brightest masters was Albrecht Dürer.
How to engrave
Creating an engraving with your own hands, no matter how strange it may seem, is a rather simple matter. Children's drawings can easily be diversified by offering the child the technique of engraving or its imitation - scratching, scratching in a pattern coated with colored paint or wax.
These engraving classes at home will perfectly entertain the kids, contribute to the development of love for beauty. And they will be the first steps in art. Working in this technique contributes to the development of fine motor skills, perseverance and accuracy in a child.
Even small children can create paintings in this technique. For kids, you can simplify the process and they will need the help of adults. For this technique we need:
- thin plates of foam or expanded polystyrene;
- a stick for scratching a picture, a graver or a regular ballpoint pen.
- scissors;
- colored paper;
- paints;
- rubber roller for rolling work.
The child can draw a drawing on the styrofoam plate with a ballpoint pen by pressing harder on it.
You will get a drawing, the contours of which are pressed into the material.
Let's cut out the city and put it on a tray so as not to stain everything around with paint.
Using a roller, apply paint to the plate.
Lay it on a sheet of colored paper and press firmly.
Carefully removing the plate from the paper, we will see the resulting engraving.
Svetlana Bolshakova
Recently, going through my old notes from the courses, I found two printed sheets, two old engravings.
This engraving made of cardboard
And here, in addition to cardboard, lace is used
We were shown techniques for working with prints, preparing clichés for printing engravings. Then I really liked this technique. The matter was approaching March 8 and I decided to do it with the guys for moms postcard engraving. I made the cliche myself from cardboard, and the children only painted with gouache and made an impression on paper. Cardboard quickly soaked, flaked and fell into disrepair. The preparatory work seemed difficult to me, and I engraving did not return to work with children. But, finding old leaves with engravings I wanted to remember how it's done.
Engraving on cardboard(from the French gravure) - cut, create a relief - a kind of print. A relief imprint of a seal is made with the help of an application, made up of individual cardboard elements. The thickness of the cardboard must be at least 2 mm. Engraving came from jewelry. She is very multifaceted: linocut, metal engraving, engraving on cardboard, woodcut, lithography. There are many ways to take impressions from natural objects: leaves, feathers, flowers. Grating is an imitation engravings.
I want to show you how engraving on cardboard. I took 2 identical cardboard boxes 11x15 cm.
I cut out a frame from one and glued it to the second, although this is not necessary
I decided to make a vase with flowers, cut out a vase and some elements for it
I cut out flowers, their centers, leaves and parts of leaves.
All glued to the base
I decided to take burgundy gouache
But I didn't like it.
Painted black
Strongly pressed when stroking with fingers on the left, again not that
Painted again and made a print. Well, now you can stick it on paper and insert it into a frame
But my cliche got wet after three times and the elements began to delaminate
In searching for material on this topic on the Internet, I found recommendations for working with children using polystyrene and ceiling tiles. This is what we did yesterday with my corn-lover guests. (I talked about this in a previous post) - engraving using polystyrene - a substrate for vegetables. I had one such "bowl" of mushrooms, I cut it, first I tried it on my granddaughters
My gouache is good, professional and it is not necessary to dilute it with water. And children's gouache needs to be diluted to the density of sour cream. The first impression may not work, but the second one will be better. Such an engraving will never get wet and children will be able to draw a drawing with a ballpoint pen, paint over with gouache and make an impression.
We littered the gouache in vain, the drawing is not very clearly visible.
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The history of engraving dates back to ancient China, but this type of art became especially widespread in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance that followed it. The secrets and techniques of making engravings, having undergone some transformation, have come down to us.
The process of creating a real engraving is complex and requires certain preparation, the availability of the necessary tools, knowledge of technology, physical strength and experience. There are many different techniques and techniques that professional engravers are familiar with. Despite the complexity and multi-stage nature of this type of creativity, engravings are very popular.
Works of art in the style of engraving are very valuable for their special presentation of the drawing, the efforts of the master spent on creating unique paintings using this technique, as well as for the wide possibilities of creative self-expression that allow drawing true masterpieces.
Now every child can try himself in this difficult art. To do this, you do not need to study for a long time and buy expensive materials and tools. Did you know that there are, they are the most popular. The attention of modern children and their parents is presented with numerous sets for children's creativity in the genre of engraving, which are easy and simple to use.
What is a children's print?
The technology for creating children's engravings is very different from the real one. The set of a young engraver consists of a blank and a special tool - a graver. The blank is a sheet of thick cardboard on which two layers of paint are applied. The first layer is the base, the second layer is the engraving surface itself. The children's engraver is presented in the form of a pen with a metal tip bevelled on its side.
This shape is modeled after a real professional instrument of the same name. The special angle of the bevel of the metal part of the engraver is designed for the convenience of removing the surface layer of paint. The workpiece has already been marked with an outline of a drawing that the child will have to engrave. Passing the engraver over the dark top paint, the child easily cleans it off, and the base paint appears in the resulting “free” stroke. For greater aesthetics and elegance of the resulting work, manufacturers make the base layer silver or golden. The resulting paintings are very reminiscent of real engravings, and it is really very beautiful.
At what age can one begin to get acquainted with engraving?
The simplest kits for creativity in this area are designed for children 5 years old. The drawing in such blanks is distinguished by simplicity and large details, and the base paint, as a rule, is rainbow, which is very popular with five-year-olds. For older children, you can choose a more complex pattern with small lines. The theme of the image for engravings can be different. Here it is better to focus on the preferences of your child. It can be any animal, an old castle or a copy of a real building, a bouquet of flowers or an image of a ship, car, plane. Each child will be able to find the drawing that will suit his taste.
Does the child need help in the first stage?
Yes. Despite the accessibility and simplicity of children's engravings, an adult should explain to the child exactly how to hold the tool, how to position the drawing in order to achieve the best results. The engraver must be tightly clamped in the palm of the working hand - so that it is convenient to press, and the tool does not dangle from side to side. When drawing lines, you need to make movements not from yourself, but, on the contrary, towards yourself. This technique allows you to better control the uniformity of the removal of the paint layer and rationally distribute efforts. If it becomes necessary to draw a curved line, it would be better if the child could move not a hand with a chisel clamped in it, but a sheet of paper. This is especially important if he wants to continue his acquaintance with the art of engraving and move from children's sets to a more difficult level by engraving on metal or wood.
If you show an illustration, like this one, with a motorcycle, made by Mark Summers, even in the circle of illustrators, almost no one will recognize the technique. Some will confidently say that it is drawn on a computer, they personally know the magic filter that will draw everything by itself. Some will say that it is all hand-drawn in black ink, imitating old engravings. And the most adult part, who still spent their youth with manual rather than digital tools, condescendingly pats everyone on the virtual shoulder: puppies, this is a woodcut, I recognize it.
And they are all wrong :)
At first glance, it really looks like a woodcut. Where white is selected, where black drawing is left. Firstly, it is laborious to imitate this with ink, and secondly, it will still turn out badly, you need to draw with ink, as ink is supposed to - in black and white. These drawings are made in a technique similar to engraving.
Wood engraving is indeed the oldest and most classic book illustration technique. I have a story about illustration techniques in the 19th century. In short, an end cut of a tree was taken so that the fibers were perpendicular to the drawing surface, polished, covered with whitewash, an illustration drawing was applied on top and the engraver cut out the drawing. Everything that should have been black remained the surface of the wood, everything that was white deepened. If you had to make a thin black line, you had to remove the tree on both sides of it. If you have ever cut a linocut or stamp, you have a rough idea of this technique.
The wooden piece became a printing stamp - paint was applied to it and printed on the sheets of the future book. This is how Tenniel's illustrations for Alice were made. And here comes the most interesting thing. There are no "originals" for Alice. Tenniel came to the workshop to the engraver and drew on a piece of wood. The engraver then cut out everything superfluous so that a black drawing remained. Got it? Engraver.
The engraver determined exactly how the line would pass, how the shadow was determined, how elegantly or roughly the detail would be cut.
Nowadays, the closest profession to this is inker, a person who draws ink on a drawing for a comic book. Not all artists draw comics from start to finish on their own. Usually the artist draws a detailed pencil sketch and gives it to the inker. Inker circles everything with ink. He decides how to make a black spot, where to put a semitone, with what pressure the line near the eye will be. If you ever went to a wood burning circle in a pioneer camp, you can imagine the scatter of results. If ten pioneers are given a drawing of a touching Bambi, carbon paper, a piece of plywood, and a burner, they will all burn (trace) the final drawing in different ways. Disney may not recognize his four-legged.
Therefore, what we see in the books with Alice is how the hand of the pioneer-burner engraver went. Maybe all these faces of an adult lady, with heavy painted eyes - just the engraver's choice?
In case you're wondering, this obscure hero's name was Thomas Dalziel, and he was from a family of very popular Victorian era engravers, even drawing illustrations himself. So he couldn't completely spoil the illustrations with a wooden stroke. But this does not negate the fact that there are no paper, drawn originals for Alice. In the Oxford Museum, the originals are stored wooden blocks with a carved pattern, from which the first edition was printed. (More precisely, the second. The first came out rough and dirty, the process required alterations and refinements, only the second satisfied Tenniel, and the first was sold in the second-rate market - in America.
Wood engraving gave a distinct black and white pattern (which metal engravings did not give) and these qualities, of course, still attract aesthetically. But cutting wood is difficult and requires skill. It seems silly to give your illustrations to engravers, it is difficult to cut it yourself - and the main question is why? In the pre-computer era, it is clear why - technically the drawing was printed from this board. Now, when everything is printed from digital forms, it would be necessary to print from wood onto paper, scan the paper - and transfer the drawing to print. And cut just to make a print?
Today, no one cuts wood for illustrations. The same effect can be achieved in a technique called scratchboard. It is 100% handmade, the process is basically the same as in wood engraving, but the "engraving board" is also a print, the final work.
See? The white lines are cut through, the black remains untouched as a background, looks exactly like a woodcut.
In fact, this is a specially prepared cardboard ("scratching board" in translation). A thick sheet of paper is covered with white clay, a substance with a chalky surface, and a thin layer of black paint, such as ink or ink, is applied over the white layer. The artist draws a design on a black surface, takes a sharp tool - usually one of the X-Acto knives - and scratches the surface like an engraver. With the tip of a knife it is easy to draw lines of any width, like a pen, to remove everything black, where it should be white, to hatch parallel and cross and completely create the appearance of a wood engraving.
At the same time, if you made a mistake somewhere, you can cover this area with ink and engrave the failed place again.
Now let's see what a typical drawing process looks like. Kent Barton is one of the preeminent American illustrators of this technique. Of course. in this technique, they order works with a historical flair or a touch of antiquity. So he received an order for an illustration about gunfighters.
First, a mass of reference material is collected. Separate details and scenes are drawn on the tracing paper:
The most detailed drawing, in which all tone ratios are applied, is approved by the customer, if necessary, new options are drawn and glued. After that, the drawing is transferred to the scratchboard. Kent works on a black and a white scratchboard. Why? It is not always convenient to completely clean the white background from the black scrapboard.
Therefore, it works in local black. On the right - a drawing prepared for work, the figure in it is filled with ink. On the right is an already "engraved" drawing on what used to be a black spot too.
He does not have a knife in his hand, but a special scraper with a wooden handle and two points:
Part by part, he moves forward on the sheet. In order not to lubricate the drawing with black “shavings”, a napkin is placed under the arm, while the “engraved” dust from the drawing is brushed off from time to time.
Here's a bigger one. On a black scratchboard, the black color is usually even and deep, here you can see how Kent painted it himself. anyway, in the end it will be a drawing with linear hatching.
And this is his work:
Larger jacket:
For such hatching, a steady hand is needed no worse than that of ancient engravers.
Here you can see what different types of strokes are used. on the face in shape, with the expansion and contraction of the line to create the desired tone, on the hat with separate white dots, against the background of a disorderly cross-hatching.
Well, isn't he handsome?
Technique comes out especially well in this technique (unexpected pun)
And here is a direct imitation of an old illustration from some catalog or brochure.
Now let's look at another great artist working in this technique - Mark Summers (Mark Summers). This is his motorcycle at the beginning of the post, I hope I impressed you with its thoroughness.
Quick sketch for illustration.
The second stage is a more detailed drawing with color. Some illustrators color their "engravings". Mark is just one of those who loves colored drawings. Therefore, he draws a detailed sketch with a marker on tracing paper, sticks this tracing paper entirely on a colored sheet of the desired shade and passes over it with white in bright places. She herself calls this sketch technique "Byzantine", referring to its strange complexity :)
It works just on a black scratchboard. He transfers the drawing to it and engraves figure after figure. It takes him at least three days to complete each character.
If the work was supposed to be in color, he scans his finished scratchboard, prints it on photo paper, paints fine details with watercolors, then fills large planes with oil paint glazes. So, unlike Tenniel, he has two originals coming out at once :)
It is clear that for such a technique you need to draw brilliantly in the first place. And it’s very good to understand chiaroscuro - you have to type the tones in the opposite way to the usual drawing - the more you hatch in one place, the lighter it becomes.
Here is another tinted Hatter. It is a pity that in the days of Carroll there were no scratchboards :)
And another commercial illustrator: Michael Halbert
Olive Tree:
And detail:
Mark Twain:
And his right hand:
I don't know who, in a hat:
And a detail. Michael specifically imitates the most classic form of woodcut.
And a bigger detail:
And finally: Halloween witch
And her face is big:
Now you are experts in this rare technique :)
_____
On LiveJournal, I have other posts in the "illustrator techniques" series, I won't give a link here.
Engraving on cardboard is a relatively young genre of art. In a simple way, this type of work is called "scratch", because in order to achieve a drawing, that is, directly engraving, you need to scratch some surface. And for such purposes, even cardboard is suitable. This type of engraving can be mastered not only by people with experience in art, but also by novice artists.
The engraving itself depends on such factors:
- the texture of the selected material, in this case cardboard;
- relief heights;
- pressure force during operation; lines can be made of different thickness and color intensity.
Color engraving on cardboard
How is engraving done?
Of the materials for engraving will be useful:
- cardboard of any kind (packaging, bound, pressboard);
- needles or files;
- lancet;
- knives.
The technique itself goes through several stages:
- A soft pencil or lithographic depict a picture on tracing paper or glossy paper. After that, the drawn side of the tracing paper is applied to a sheet of cardboard. A special plate is driven along it from above with pressure. But further relief is obtained with the help of scratching or engraving with chisels, or appliqué.
- Water-based paint will help to give texture to the engraving. You need to fix the result with nitro-lacquer, while avoiding streaks.
Please note that this technique is more professional. It is done by hand, but the print of the picture in this case should not exceed 2030 centimeters, otherwise not all the paint will stick to the paper. For such a procedure, the paint must be chosen thick, often ordinary oil paint and white are mixed, diluted with drying oil in a ratio of 7: 3. Such material must be aged for several days in an open container.
A layer of paint is applied to cardboard with a thickness of 0.1–0.5 mm. For printing, water-based inks are often chosen, mixing them with glycerin. The paper is applied on top of the cardboard with a layer of paint and the lapping process begins. Plates that rub paper are often rubbed with wax. This is necessary for better glide.
This procedure can be performed in mechanized mode using an etching machine. In this case, a board and several layers of soft paper are additionally applied to the paper, then there will be no violation of the relief of the print.
Color engraving can only be done on cardboard. Initially, an imprint of a warm shade is made. Then the material is dried, and then prints of other colors are alternately made. This procedure takes a lot of time, but in engraving you can achieve different shades, reliefs and textures on one cardboard.
In order to enhance the impression of engravings, artists use attachments applied on top of the sheet from which the print is made in those places where the artist wants to saturate the drawing. But a mask that is placed between paper and cardboard can enhance the effect of the color scheme.
The engraving tool itself - the needle file - must be held either straight or at an angle of 35 degrees. There are situations when the smallest slots are compressed during printing, and the impression effect is not achieved. And also do not use crosshatching in this technique. The problem with this technique is that during its application, whole pieces of material will break out on the cardboard, so the print will be of poor quality, and you will not achieve the desired picture.
This method is more suitable for professionals, since a person who encounters such an engraving for the first time may not understand the principle of the method. In addition, it will be especially difficult to make the right print or apply paint so that the required relief is obtained. Any spots, irregularities not in the planned place can smear the effect of the engraving, so you need to practice before doing such work. Or choose the simple option.
Home engraving option
Engraving can be done by hand. The principle of its manufacture will differ from the artistic method, but with its help it will be interesting to spend time. Such an engraving on cardboard is called a “scratch”. A background is applied to the cardboard. It can be monophonic and multi-colored.
Stages of engraving on cardboard
A black wax layer is applied on top. And then with a special knife, different figures or a whole picture are cut out on it. True, relief cannot be achieved in such engravings, but the result can be very beautiful and refined. Often such drawings are sold even in children's departments, but they can be made independently.
For this you will need:
- cardboard;
- wax pencils;
- brush;
- gouache.
The cardboard must be completely painted over, it can be a multi-colored or plain background. We apply gouache on top of the sheet, leaving no gaps. It is best to choose black paint, then the engraving will have a contrast. After the paint layer has dried, you can engrave the picture using scratching tools. Draw images to your liking. You can change the thickness of the line and the imprint with the force of pressing.
And in this way, you can paint over the finished drawing. To make it appear on the engraving, you will need to erase the top layer with a coin. But such variations are quite primitive and suitable for children.
Engraving is quite an interesting art form that continues to develop. Much of it depends on the skill of the artist. But also this genre is suitable for those who like to experiment and take risks.
