Mercury Print/Matt Project

My element was Mercury. Its atomic number is 80, and its chemical symbol is Hg. My element has been used for many things in the past, but it turned out to be poisonous and harmful to people. In the 20th century, it was commonly used for thermometers, fluorescent lights and light bulbs,  batteries, tooth fillings, felt production, and much more. It was discovered in Spain and France 30,000 years ago when it used for ancient cave murals and decoration. For my imagery, I originally made designs that incorporated a lot of Mercury's many well-known uses, but I felt like it was not very original. I did research and learned that Mercury is nicknamed "quicksilver" because it is a liquid metal and has a silver metallic look. I decided to use that for my design instead, because I thought it was more creative and less known about Mercury. To make the print, I made many different sketches because I felt that none of them were the design that I wanted. I finally decided on a design that looked like silver droplets around everything, and cleaned it up so the design looked nice. Then, I traced my design onto transfer paper and then onto a styrofoam plate. I went in with a blunted pencil on the styrofoam and pressed down the parts that I wanted to be white in the final product. Finally, I got the ink, covered my print with ink using a paint roller, and put the final product on paper. I matted two of them and left one untouched. If I did the print again, I probably would have made the prints further away from the edge because I struggled to rip the sides in a nice looking way. I also would have added a little more detail, because I thought the negative space wouldn't come out as well as it did in the end. The part I enjoyed the most was doing the printing itself, because I really enjoyed the different colors of ink and it made me feel like all the work that I did paid off.