Somehow I always get myself into these situations where I’m working on five things at once and scrambling to get them done in a timely manner. But secretly, I adore it. I live for these moments. Here’s a truncated to do list for the remainder of my winter break:

• Finish four web project (Currently working on two, both of which are going well. It’s the other two I’m concerned about…)
• Help Jason & Tristan finish their prints
• Organize and hang the “New Directions 2008″ show at Artifacts
• Fix things up around the studio (set up lights above the printing area, make a screen drying area)
• Finish the print exchange print and get that sent off before Jan. 15th
• Write statements for GD “thesis”, litho independent &c.

I’m sure there’s more that I’m currently forgetting about, but right now, I’m ready to go go go.

Finished my mock up today, printed transparencies, and burned a couple of screens. I’ve got to mix inks, tear and prep my paper and I’ll be good to go. Now, I should probably sleep.

Still working on this one…

Hope everyone had a good holiday. Mine was pretty uneventful, but relaxing as it should be. Caught up on a lot of sleep and promptly lost it again when I started getting calls from my friends. That’s alright though, who needs sleep?

My dad and I ended up splitting the cost of a pressure washer. I was telling him about how there wasn’t enough power from the garden hose attachment I bought and he got all excited at the prospect of having a pressure washer. (He can wash the cars! And the siding!) He got the better deal considering I’m not in Tulsa most of the time. Anyway, it’s working out a lot better than the garden hose. The Ulano Stencil Remover #4 is still awful though. It cleared some of the emulsion from the screen in my previous post, but I’m getting the same problem I was last Spring at MICA. It looks clean, but there’s still a residue of emulsion that shows up when printing.

I’ve got an order of EasiSolv 5 on the way to my house (thanks Kyle for being so quick with your response!). I picked up some Speedball Speed Clean from the art store to clear the screens that Jason and Tristan brought. I figured it would work because their screens had been coated with Speedball emulsion. We started trying to clear the screens by hand in the bathroom (it was midnight, I’m sure my parents and neighbors would not appreciate the pressure washer being on) and that didn’t work so well. Oddly enough, it works really well with the pressure washer. It even cleared the Ulano emulsion from a new(er) screen that I coated. Now I know, if I’m in a bind and I need some stencil remover, I can just buy some of this Speedball stuff from the store.

This is what Jason’s screen looked like last night after much vigorous scrubbing. It looks much much cleaner now.

Jason and Tristan will be over later tonight, so there’s hopefully going to some printing in the future (!!!!).

More sketches:

Didn’t do a whole lot today. Snowed a bit in Tulsa and with the combined holiday traffic, I decided the best course of action would be to avoid driving. Stayed in, worked on a few gifts (still need to do holiday baking!), sketching, cleaning. Tomorrow there will be some last minute shopping (bleh) and hopefully meeting up with Jason and Tristan and/or Mols, Monday will be a pilgrimage to IKEA in Dallas (frames &c, kitchen things for the rents). If I don’t get to posting, Happy Holidays everyone!

Throughout this project of setting up the basement studio, I have tried to find the easiest, most affordable methods while still producing the best results. It’s important to me to try a few options that could save me money instead of just haphazardly throwing money into (possibly) unnecessary equipment. But I guess there are just some things that I can’t cut corners on. Reclaiming screens might be one of these things.

Reclaiming Screens Pt. 1, Pt. 2 (This website has a number of really good articles on printing ranging from squeegee selection to creating good halftone films to the one about reclaiming screens) – “Stencil removers can do a good job of breaking down and loosening the stencil, but they simply can’t do their job properly without the assistance of a power washer.”
It makes a really convincing argument and also states that water temperature for reclaiming screens is really just a preference. In looking at pressure washers online, one that I was looking at claimed that it delivered 75 times more power than an ordinary garden hose. But what’s true and what’s just hype? I really don’t want to spend a lot of money on a pressure washer if it’s not the solution.

Part of me thinks that it could be the stencil remover solution. It’s what’s recommended by Ulano, but with whatever we’re using at MICA, I can usually remove all of the emulsion if I apply it to each side of the screen and thoroughly scrub with a sponge. It gets to the point where it gets sudsy and you can see the emulsion come off. The use of the pressure washer in that case is only for peace of mind. Even at looking at an art supply website like Dick Blick presents a page full of options on screen cleaners and reclaiming chemicals.

Unrelated to the act of reclaiming screens, but in my searching, I found Casey Britt’s log of his screenprinting set up and it’s a fascinating read. Very very nice vacuum table too!

The only thing I can conclude from today is that I need to do more research. Patience patience patience. Got to keep telling myself that.

I knew that something would inevitably go wrong. Well, nothing really wrong, it’s just delaying progress.

I can’t fully reclaim the screen that I shot yesterday. I’m using the right emulsion remover (Well, as far as I know. I checked the Ulano site and it’s the same one that they recommend), my guess is that it can be two things: not a strong enough spray of water or water that’s too cold. Possible solution? Take Nick’s advice and invest in some Gardena quick connect adapters and outfit the shower with a nozzle that has more power. That way I can change the temperature as needed. Tempted to just burn another screen to test out another theory I have, but I don’t want to use a screen if I potentially cannot reclaim them. More on this later.

To end on a better note, here are some sketches I did last night:

I’m a big fan of starting everything on paper before ever touching a computer. Makes everything a little less scatterbrained.

Didn’t do very much today – slept in late, made awesome French toast despite it being past lunch (oops), did laundry and attached the hinge clamps to the table. I’ve been listening to “Atlas” by Battles ever since I downloaded it (scroll to the bottom, it’s #2) from the Pitchfork Top 100 list. Crazy shit. I’ll probably listen to it on repeat (or end up buying the album from iTunes) while sketching ideas for screenprints and lithographs tonight.

Hardly what I would consider perfect, but it’s getting there. I’m just so glad it wasn’t a complete failure! There are a lot of factors that contributed to it, but I’m sure it’ll get worked out with a little bit of time. The most difficult thing right now is trying to find good exposure times for different media. I’m perhaps not the most precise person (you should see my approach to alternative process photography…), so it’ll be a little bit of a challenge. I really don’t think that a halftone photograph was the best choice for a first print, I was just impatient and it was the first thing I dug up.

I’m going to dig up the test print (hopefully I still have it) that I did of the image during the spring and compare it. The halftone dots are obviously not very clear, the lack of vacuum is pretty obvious. What I ended up doing was covering the whole thing with a piece of black fleece (blocks out the crazy light) and placed some boxes and pieces of wood on the screen to keep the space between the film and the screen to a minimum. After seeing the result from tonight, I think I’m going to need a little more weight or at least something a little bit bigger (perhaps it didn’t cover the entire area of the film?).

Coating the screen was a snap, I did it all in the bathroom with the lights off and the door open to catch the light from the other room. Could do with a bit more light, actually. Maybe I’m being paranoid about exposing the emulsion? Better safe than sorry, I suppose. I’m not letting all of that emulsion go to waste because of some careless error. Anyone have info on how sensitive Ulano TZ emulsion is? The lights in the bathroom are just the standard incandescents, I think four of them, probably 60 watt.

To summarize, the potential factors that contribute to the less-than-stellar print include…

• lack of hinge clamps on my table (they’re there, just not attached.)
• the ink that’s practically two years old
• exposure time (around 1 min to be safe; too long? too short?)
• water too strong when washing out/poor job washing out (it’s pretty difficult to see what has been washed out versus what hasn’t)

Part of the thrill is being able to solve these problems. …Point me back to this entry when I’m tearing out my hair and screaming expletives loud enough the neighbors can hear me.

I shot some decent pictures of my artwork today, finally!

Here’s a much better picture of my (still untitled) two color etching. I’m pretty satisfied with the handcoloring, but I keep wondering what it could have turned into if I had aquatinted it. If I have a moment next semester, I might just try it.

This is my last etching from class. I really enjoy the appearance of burnishing down an aquatint. It just takes so much time. I practically burnished down the entire original image. I wasn’t terribly satisfied with it until it got to this point. I think I’m getting there.

I love these two. As a pair, they’re my favorite piece that I’ve created this semester. I even went to all the trouble of reprinting the edition (didn’t have much luck last time for a number of reasons), so now they look more rich and black and definitely more consistent. I think it helped printing these separately. I’m still debating on how to hang these – separately or in one mat/frame.

Anyway, I cleaned the basement a bit today. In the amount of time between Thanksgiving and now, all of the potted plants that used to be outside have migrated indoors. There are a lot of them, but who doesn’t like plants? A lot of moving of pool supplies and all that. I’m pretty excited for this summer when I’ll be able to screenprint for a couple of hours and then go outside and jump in the pool. Very happy about that. Getting ready to bring down the rest of my printing stuff, but here it is:

The exposing area.

The printing area.

I bought a new shower head today and a nozzle for the hose outside. Not much stress on the wallet. I’m going to try that for now and if it doesn’t work, I’ll go for something with a little more muscle. I still have to drill the hinge clamps into the table and make a little light proof box for coated screens. Nothing terribly complicated there. I figure I could get some cinder blocks, some scrap wood from next door and some black tarps and fashion something that would keep the light out reasonably well. Just how light sensitive is the emulsion anyway? There’s a decent amount of sunlight that comes through the windows and it makes me a little worried about coating screens anywhere other than the bathroom. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem to coat them in the bathroom, except when summer comes around and people actually start using it again. And storing them in an area that gets some traffic doesn’t sound like a good idea either. I’ll figure it out, just thinking out-loud right now.