Wings to Fly, Branches to Return 2025

Wings to Fly, Branches to Return, Multi-Color Reduction Relief Print, 9" x 12"

This was my final project for the class. I chose to take another pass at a reduction relief. I decided to more family imagery, choosing the pattern of the fabric on my grandparent’s dining room chairs. To title this piece, I thought deeply about my family’s dynamic and how we have been provided with everything we need to go off on our own to succeed, but can always come home and everyone will be there waiting. I thought that “Wings to Fly, Branches to Return” both captured this dynamic, but also paired nicely with the imagery of the fabric I chose. I did alter the colors slightly from the original fabric, but they are similar.

I had some alignment and pressure issues on almost all of these prints, along with incorrectly mixing my dark green and light blue layers. The green ended up printing darker than I thought and to keep the overall print from getting too dark, I decided to print my last layer as a light blue. Typically, you would want to print from lightest to darkest layers. For the light blue layer I used transparent base because there was no more white ink, leaving a shimmery and textured layer. I had also planned to add a final outlined layer, but ran out of time. During the critique, my peers actually expressed that they appreciated the lack of outline.