Adinkra Printmaking (Linocut)
During this lesson, Art I students developed an abstract symbol based on a proverb selected by each individual student. After developing their symbol, students carved a linoleum block and printed their imagery using pattern, rhythm, and movement to create their final prints! Each student completed several practice prints with black ink, before selecting a color scheme and printing the final pieces seen above. Students also completed one additional print, using a classmates block that connected to their motif conceptually or aesthetically.
Adinkra is a cotton cloth produced in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire which has traditional Akan symbols stamped upon it. Traditional or well known cloths produced in Africa are the Adinkra , Kente , Adanudo and Mud Cloth. Traditional ink (called “adinkra aduru” or adinkra medicine) is obtained by soaking and boiling the bark of the ‘badie’ (Bod-ie) tree with iron ore slag. Adinkra cloth is used in Ghana primarily for funerals and times of mourning. It is worn by men across the body and over a shoulder, leaving the other bare. Women wear the material wrapped around the head, torso, or lower body. Students will study this traditional cloth, and create their own symbol based on a proverb from scripture to carve into a rubber matrix to eventually print with.
Fine Arts Goals/Objectives:
● Investigate Adinkra cloth and its traditional uses as well as the use of symbolism in Adinkra stamps
● Create an abstracted symbol based on a verse from Proverbs
● Obtain and be able to apply printmaking vocabulary
● Learn about relief printing process and using tools safely
● Learn about contemporary practices of collaborative artmaking
● Analyze and critique work
Visual Arts Standards:
ILLINOIS STATE STANDARDS
25.B.4 Analyze and evaluate similar and distinctive characteristics of works in two or more of the arts that share the same historical period or societal context
26.A.4e Visual Arts: Analyze and evaluate how tools/technologies and processes combine to convey meaning.
26.B.4d Visual Arts: Demonstrate knowledge and skills that communicate clear and focused ideas based on planning, research and problem solving.
27.B.5 Analyze how the arts shape and reflect ideas, issues or themes in a particular culture or historical period.
NATIONAL CORE ARTS STANDARDS
VA:Pr6.1.HSII Make, explain, and justify connections between artists or artwork and social, cultural, and political history.
VA:Cn11.1.HSI Describe how knowledge of culture, traditions, and history may influence personal responses to art..
VA:Cr3.1.HSI Apply relevant criteria from traditional and contemporary cultural contexts to examine, reflect on, and plan revisions for works of art and design in progress.
VA:Re7.2.HSI Analyze how one’s understanding of the world is affected by experiencing visual imagery.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS (Modified)
2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text/image/score/performance and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
5. Analyze the structure of texts/image/score/performance, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, measures, sections or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.
8. Delineate and evaluate the argument, specific claims or expressed concept in a text/image/score/performance, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
9. Analyze how two or more texts/images/scores/performances address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors/artists/composers take.
Vocabulary Acquisition:
● Adinkra: Adinkra are visual symbols, originally created by the Akan, that represent concepts or aphorisms. Adinkra are used extensively in fabrics, pottery, logos and advertising. They are incorporated into walls and other architectural features.
● Asante: A member of a people of south central Ghana. The dialect of Akan spoken by the Ashanti.
● Printmaking: The art or technique of making, prints, especially as practiced in engraving, etching, drypoint, woodcut or serigraphy.
● Relief printing : Relief printing is a process where protruding surface faces of the printing plate or block are inked; recessed areas are ink free. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple matter of inking the face of the matrix and bringing it in firm contact with the paper.
● Brayer: A small roller for inking by hand
● Printing block: Used to transfer an image in ink to paper
● Inking plate: Surface on which the ink is rolled out.
● Proof: The act of testing or making trial of anything.
● Symbol: Something used for or regarded as representing something else.
● Abstract: Of or relating to the formal aspect of art, emphasizing lines, colors, generalized or geometrical forms, etc., especially with reference to their relationship to one another.
● Positive space: Main focus of the picture
● Negative space: Space around and between the main subject of an image
● Matrix: Another word for a Printing Block; used to transfer an image in ink to paper
Artmaking Materials Needed:
● Pencil, paper
● EZ Cut block, carving tools
● Ink, brayer, acrylic/plexiglass
● Paper, cloth for printing
Contemporary/Historical/Multicultural/Popular exemplars:
Adinkra cloth makers
El Anatsui
Yinka Shonibare