Engraving

→ This orientation is open from the beginning of the school year 2025 to Masters students.

Teachers : Danièle Leclercq, Anne Valkenborgh

The activities take place in the framework of two workshops, "Metal engraving" and "Wood engraving, lino, litho", which exist in Erg. These workshops offer technical facilities and a suitable working environment, which allow students to develop, with a traditional medium and tools, practices that can be very contemporary.

The orientation "Drawing" aims to meet the expectations of students who, while being otherwise trained in other dimensions of artistic practices, wish to concentrate on engraving as a means of expression.

Workshop pedagogy is at the heart of the orientation programme. It seems to correspond well to the needs and expectations of some students, as it initiates a practical and collective approach, whereby students can experiment, share, and deepen their projects independently, while benefiting from interaction with their peers and with a master workshop teacher.

Workshop attendance, at least six hours per week, is mandatory.

Engraving as an artistic technique

The engraving is characterized by the following features:

• a set of techniques that requires a specific "heavy" infrastructure
• a technique with a succession of steps
• the possibility of multiple
• the possibility of reworking the printing matrix.

This last trait makes the use of close analysis particularly useful, relevant and demonstrative of the image (how to make it "live" and "talk") since it is possible to return to the work and to make changes or to draw from it variations.

The binding side of the technique means that in many cases there is a good way of Do. This leads to a requirement of rigour vis-à-vis beginners, which in itself has a value.

The final objective is to graduate, at the end of the two years of the master's degree, from students who have acquired the ability to produce technically sound and creative engravings in the first year and three more of these techniques in second year, with a technique of engraving in relief and two debossed engravings each year.

The techniques involved are the dry tip, the strong water, the aquatin, the black way, the varnish soft, lino, wood and lithography.

Personal project

Training follows the personal project method. The student chooses a subject they propose to deal with by producing engravings made according to one or more of the techniques they have put into their program. They determine their research area, thanks to the contribution of its multidisciplinary workshop, the course(s) The European Commission has been involved in the development of the European Community's research and development programme. They document themselves on his subject in order to be able to turn it into talking images taking advantage of Specific expressivity of the technique(s) used.

They choose their techniques and their way of presentation according to their artistic objectives. They must also be able to make justified choices and to change their work in the future. and difficulties encountered.

Finally, they must also be able to present an analysis of his work, highlighting The evolution of his approach to each particular work and work. They rework its matrices if necessary to better reflect the intentions of their images.

Prerequisites and admission test

In order to enter the "cut" orientation, the student must have at least two engraving techniques, at least one of which must be debossed, and must have acquired the capacity to develop a personal project according to the Erg pedagogy or have received similar training in another school.

The possession of these skills is assessed on the basis of an admission test (including scratches) presented and commented on by the student.