Outcome

Here is my first attempt at a response inspired by the historical prints of witches. I etched the image of a witch into a piece of cardboard, inspired by the method of printing through woodcutting. On the left, I covered all of the cardboard in paint, however you can see it was unsuccessful and definition was lost, so I changed my method by just putting the paint in the grooves of the cardboard, which turned out more successfully, as seen on the right.

 

Continuing with the same method, I added more figures to create a scene similar to the ones in the original pamphlets, however I wanted to reverse the roles to put the witches in power, in order to portray how irrational and deluded the men in power were. Above you can see the outline of two men being cornered by a witch, protected by a demon and a crow, which were typical creatures associated with witchcraft and the devil. In the bottom right, I tried to portray the ‘sink or swim’ torture method I mentioned previously, however with the roles in reverse and the witch in power.

Here is the final outcome I created, utilising the same layout in the piece above, however I wanted to include more detail so I used a fine marker pen to add the line shading that was often used in the pamphlets. I included some more background features to create the more gothic and traditional look in the piece, and I feel the combination of the harsh black paint with the fine line detail work well together. Overall, I am very pleased with the results, and I feel they represent how unjustified and misogynistic the men’s actions were at that time, and could even reflect how some men feel threatened or emasculated by powerful women today.