Done! Started on Wednesday and finished on Saturday. I’m really happy with the yellow shape (not originally planned) and how bright the colors look overall. Looking back at the mock-up, I much prefer this. Didn’t really come together until the yellow layer.
“Great Wall”
12-color screenprint with chine-collé
15 x 22″
In an effort to keep up with my posting, I am writing this with utter exhaustion. Don’t get me wrong, it was a good day of printing. However, lots of standing on my feet and having a body that hasn’t been terribly happy with me lately has left me feeling not so awesome. Gotta carry on anyway and you bet your ass I’ll be back in the shop bright and early tomorrow.
Apologies for the camera phone pictures, but it didn’t really occur to me to bring my camera today. Overall printing went pretty smoothly. Here are some of the issues/thoughts that I had:
- Totally snafu’d the registration on this one! Printed out all the registration marks on the film, crop marks, etc. Basically anything to help me line up all of these layers. And then totally negated all that work by placing the film on the screen in such a way that none of those helpful things exposed. Haha. I think I managed ok by eyeballing it and using mylar as a back-up, but it could certainly be tighter.
- Idea for registration next time: make the document in Photoshop roughly two inches bigger (all around) than the image, then print films with registration marks. This way the film isn’t so awkwardly large. And it doesn’t waste paper.
- This is the first time I’ve printed with TW-Graphics ink before for my own project. Well, partially. The process inks I mixed were Speedball colors and TW base (a 50/50 mix as I have been taught). It makes all the difference! The resulting print isn’t so…chalky and flat as typical, all Speedball prints. Not to say that the TW base makes it glossy. But it definitely has a slight sheen and it seems…denser? Still searching for the right words to describe.
- TW base makes the ink much more runny. Which is still manageable, but I think it might be contributing to the dot gain. (This is something I’d really like to tighten up in the future) It’s nowhere near as bad as the CMYK prints I did last year where I threw in too many complicated factors – artwork too snug on the screen, improper squeegee length, impatience (surprisingly better at this now!), not to mention my general inexperience.
Overall, I’d have to say I’m pretty happy with how this came out. I think what makes me feel really good about this, is that I can tell that I’ve actually improved as a printer. Not to say that I am a master, far from it, but it is good to look back on old prints and see that I’ve learned from my mistakes. Here’s hoping the next few layers turn out equally as well! Now for some much needed sleep.
I have a love/hate relationship with digital mock ups. It’s great to see what a print might look like before going through all the trouble of printing it, but it’s also very easy to fall into the Photoshop trap. I’ve been a lot better about this recently and haven’t been overplanning things as much. I’ve actually made more decisions on the fly. Most of which end serendipitiously. (Surprise!) You can blame the Longitude series for that. Anyway. New work.
- The old photograph of my parents will be a cymk halftone and the color will probably look nothing like the digital version
- The tan shape on the bottom is just a placeholder for some chine collé French Dur-o-tone newsprint (yay, archival “newsprint”)
- I have no idea what color(s) the text is going to be. I’ve made five separate layers, but I have a feeling I will need more. Or I’ll possibly need more torn paper shapes behind them. Or both.
- I was originally going to include a black litho layer into this print, but I think it might be too much. And to be honest, I think I wanted to include it because it’s been a long time since I’ve printed a litho and that worries me. However, the more I think about it, the contrast between the oil based and the acrylic ink would be nice…
- Tentative title, “Great Wall.” Cheesy, yes, but it’s relevant, I promise. And not just in a “Ha ha my parents are Asian” way.
Almost forgot to mention that this print is a reworked/rethought version of what this painting was supposed to be–
I tried to finish it when I was home, but I should know better than to rush things. It usually takes me a ridiculous amount of time to finish paintings. I need to leave them alone for a while before I can work on them again. Otherwise I start nitpicking and the next thing I know I’ve painted the whole thing white again. Most of the time I don’t really feel much like a painter anyway, so it ends up being a “if the mood strikes me” sort of a thing.
Promise I’ll be better about posting progress pictures, thoughts and such. Writing this post has already been pretty helpful.
A few detail shots of cards I’ve been printing. See more on flickr.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been as diligent as I’d like. Which doesn’t leave me many excuses for not blogging. However, a new suite of prints is on the horizon, meaning many sleepless nights for me but also bountiful eye candy to the (maybe) two people who actually read this and are not in Baltimore. I’ll be posting a digital mock up soon.
I can’t start printing until my ink gets here (sometime next week?), which is frustrating. A terrible time to be impatient.
One of my favorites in the screenprinting/poster world and a constant inspiration to me, Sonnenzimmer–
Sonnenzimmer: the shoestring portrait from dsinker on Vimeo.
One of the most difficult things I’ve had to deal with as of late is that my motivation will never be at the level I feel it needs to be at.
Why can’t I just work harder?!
1. I cannot get enough of this packaging system for Jamie Oliver’s line of food products, designed by Pearlfisher. I already posted it to my tumblr a while back, but it came up on Lovely Package yesterday and I figured I just had to make a post about it. I’m such a sucker for systems, and this one is no exception to the rule. I really enjoy how the different types of food products follow separate guidelines. Gives the whole line a lot of variety, yet they still read as coming from the same place. Toss in the letterpress type, handwritten type and the color palette and you’ve got a big fan. This would have been a good reference for the “Local Market” project we worked on in my Advanced Design class.
2. Colourlovers, a site that I’ve been a member of for a long time, but not actually a participant. Well, that has changed! I guess yesterday was just a good day for color, because now I’m totally infatuated with creating color palettes. I’ve been nitpicking, but here’s one I posted yesterday:
Maybe this will be a good tool for creating palettes for design & print projects?
3. As a designer who is just starting out, few things scare me more than running into legal issues. I thought a lot about this when I was creating posters for my thesis last year. Even though I wasn’t planning on selling any of the posters, I searched for images on compfight, with the commercial use option turned on, just in case I ran into any trouble. Honestly, I’m not even sure that would have protected me from any potential trouble, but it was comforting to know that I had at least tried to go the extra mile. That said, I’m definitely surprised at the amount of appropriation in the design world, especially among poster designers/artists. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but still, look at some of these examples from the excellent flickr set by b_caruthers:
Same fish/woman’s head straight from the original to a Death Cab poster.
I suppose you could say the Nate Duval Spoon poster is a tribute to the original, but that can only go so far.
This is same image, slightly tweaked.
And this? It even uses the same colors!
I can’t say that everything I do is an original idea through and though, but I try to take a unique approach on everything. How are these appropriations ok? How is this remotely legal?
Worked on some more plates for the multi-colored, multi-plate prints. This project has proven to be the most rewarding so far, as I’ve been learning so much about etching in the process.
I took a survey course my last year at MICA that went over intaglio and relief, but I don’t feel like I got a whole lot out of it. I’m not sure why, but etching and I just didn’t click last year. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I was still developing a working method or perhaps it was just the discomfort of a new process. Either way, we’re getting along now and, studio access pending, should be off to a long and happy relationship. The new series is in a similar vain to the Longitude prints, but the change in process has already yielded some new and exciting results.
The first two proofs were done with soft ground. I applied the ground and used a crumpled up paper towel to expose the copper. It’s a little tricky because it’s hard to tell how much ground you’ve taken off and how much residue is left on the plate. It also seems to take a while in the acid to get some nice solid lines. I’m really happy with how there are turning out though, so it’s not a problem so far. The last proof was a kind of botched attempt at sugar lift. I painted the shape on with the sugar lift, uncertain of what would happen. It turns out, little dots washed away in the water bath, leaving some undesirable polka dots. I etched it anyway and decided that I would just wash off the rest of the sugar lift afterwards to get some more tones. Something went wrong in the process and I lost all the dots. Not a terribly big deal as I think I’ll need more areas of “solid” color. Right now, not so sure sugar lift is going to work for me, but I’m going to keep trying.
It’s been difficult not knowing exactly how to get what I want, but damn it, I love experimenting.
New collage exchange between Stephanie Tsong and myself.
Who doesn’t love getting messages like these?
Steph: YO i just got the mail and it’s awesome so far. i’m gonna work on it a little bit tonight and then maybe some time this weekend if i get really plastered. <3 ps – i’m sending it in a used LP box so don’t be alarmed when something twice its size comes in the mail.
