Enlightenment Prints
Artists Statement
My print is a picture of two mice sitting in a wide open field with trees in the background. My print is supposed to symbolize freedom. The mice symbolize freedom because they are beautiful and wild animals. The trees and nature are also very free and wild so I choose them to symbolize freedom. My philosopher, Thomas Jefferson, also believed that citizens should be allowed to have freedom of choice. Thomas Jefferson believed that providing people with education helped them make more educated decisions, and therefore allowing them more freedom. Mice are an example of very smart animals. It might not seem like it, but mice are very successful as a species and this is because they are smart and teach each other. I choose to paint my print with purple dye because I believe that purple is a color that really expresses freedom. I painted my stamp with the dye that I made in my Chemistry class.
I have learned a lot through the process of making a stamp. From the beginning, I learned a lot from working with photoshop to combine my symbols. Next I learned about patience when I had to carve my foam which took a long time because I had a lot of black parts on my image that I had to press in. I also learned that patience is important because when making something detailed like a stamp, it is important to take your time or you might make a mistake and on a foam stamp you can not erase your mistakes. I did mess up a little bit in the carving process on one of the trees in the background, but once I printed it, you can not see the mistake. I found this project very interesting and fun because I learned a lot about relating my ideas to my philosophers ideas as well as learning about the art of printmaking.