The Role of Printmaking-Digital Imaging within the Context of Higher Education and Contemporary Art

From my experience I have come to see traditional printmaking as a guide to the production of other artistic forms. Through the process of drawing, knowledge of the materials and the planning of the visual outcome, printmaking serves as a foundation for the creative process as well as a starting point in the development of new ideas and technologies. Printmaking shares numerous commonalities with current technology as it incorporates the basic concepts of computers and provides an archival option for those interested in seeing their digital images on paper or onto other non-traditional surfaces such as: transfers, Mylar contact negatives or offset processes. I believe with the appropriate handling, digital imaging can provide an excellent artistic tool in combination with printmaking. Printmaking and digital imaging are the essential cores of any curriculum in the arts and most importantly in contemporary art. Both techniques provide current ideology of image manipulation, layering, and color separation which also provides students with innovative ways to interpret visual information effectively and creatively. Digital imaging is an extremely important tool to develop ideas and to compliment basic drawing skills while printmaking on the other hand, supplies a rhetorical methodology for contemporary artists.