A small step: one print at a time

Lately I've been focusing a lot of my creative energy on my living space. Do you ever have the urge to just drastically alter your place? Well - I am very prone to urges, so last weekend I painted my kitchen and bathroom and have been doing a lot of organizational tasks to make our little place more comfortable.

While I was imagining how I wanted to design the space, I kept thinking of the at-home print gallery that I have always wanted. All of the art in our home right now is our own, which is fun, but I really feel the need to bring other artists into the mix! Especially prints! I love hand pulled prints because they are so accessible to people with all types of budgets. (Read: my budget! ha!)

With my future wall of prints in the back of my mind, I saw this darling image on Melinda Josie's blog...

I loved it instantly - something about it just charmed me. Of course, part of it was the subject: a kitty, in a dress, drinking tea. But, I also love the color palette, and the sweet, but somewhat grumpy expression on her face.

I posted a comment to see where Melinda got the image, and she said it was one of her own prints! Awesome! I was familiar with her drawings and paintings, but hadn't realized that she also did hand pulled prints and even fabric! So, I bought it! Now it is somewhere between Toronto and Atlanta on it's way to me! Yay!

Open studio w/ Ink and Spindle

Ink & Spindle, a fabric printing studio in Australia recently posted this lovely video showing their studio and bits of their print and design process on their blog. I love that they are so open in sharing their experience as makers with their customers. It's a side to fabric design that most people never get to see! Part of the beauty of hand printed fabrics is in the process in which they are created and the human element involved. This video illustrates that wonderfully...

Practicing a new print

I really wanted to do some screen printing today, and because I didn't have access to the screens that we have burnt in my class, (that I still haven't printed with!) I decided I was going to get some printing done another way: with an extra (crappy/old) screen I had laying around my house, and my friend: clear contact paper.

Now, contact paper isn't in any way a decent substitute for using photo emulsion on a screen. If anything, playing around with contact paper cut into a stencil today reminded me of all the positives behind printing with an emulsified screen despite the tedious process involved in getting your screen coated, dried, and your image burnt into the emulsion correctly.

For one, the contact paper does not hold up to moisture well. You can't wash one color of ink off of your screen after you are finished with it, because the stencil would just fall off - so you need to carefully blot it with a rag to tidy it up as best you can before pulling another print or changing ink colors. It is also difficult to keep the bottom of the screen (the part that touches your fabric/paper) clean from excess ink which can result in marks from stray deposits of ink getting onto parts of your work where you don't want it. You can probably get 10-12 one color prints out of your effort - and some of those may not even look decent... (I knew this... I just forgot somehow).

But, I was feeling impatient, and I wanted to print! So, I cut a simple shape out of the contact paper, stuck it to my screen and began printing!

I use a water based inks which I really love because they are translucent, so when you layer colors you get a really nice effect - it's a little bit like mixing color by layering. They are also biodegradable and don't contain any nasty chemicals or plastic like some of the other inks used for printing on textiles that are currently on the market.

I didn't get the best quality prints that I would have liked, but I am happy with how my experiments with the colors I mixed up turned out. I want to try and get together a few color ways that I can reach for when I am looking to print a design. Right now all of my color inspiration is coming from looking forward to warm, crisp weather. I want to call the salmon/taupe/azure color way "summerscape" or something there-abouts. I forgot how much fun it was to play with color because I haven't done it for so long! Amazing!

Today was such a great day. Sometimes just having ten hours free to work on creative projects is all it takes to really get on a roll. It really makes me nostalgic for the days back in school when I would wake at seven and work on art until I went to bed at night. What a life! I would love to be able to fill my days with creativity again... and that is exactly what I intend on doing. Someday. Hopefully soon!

I have been listening to Pandora while writing this post, and the most perfect song just came on... "This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)" by the Talking Heads. I'll leave you with that. Enjoy!

Screen printing class!

A couple of weeks ago I signed up for an advanced screen printing class through the Atlanta Printmakers Studio. I figured that I really could use a brush up on technical info related to screen printing (I feel like I have forgotten a lot after a few years off!) and also wanted the opportunity to work around other artists again!

Tonight was our first gathering and I am incredibly excited about the course and think I am going to get a lot out of it. The instructors run a printing shop of their own (Danger Press), so they have a great amount of experience to share with the class. All of the students have a variety of projects in mind, and I'm really looking forward to watching everyone work and seeing where their ideas take them.

Below are a few pictures I borrowed from the APS website. They have a great setup and have a lot of equipment that would not be affordable for the average printmaker to invest in all at once. (See the letterpresses below!)

Next class I will get up the nerve to take a couple of photos of my own. I was a little too shy meeting everyone for the first time to step outside of my comfort zone! Doh!