New Demo for Screenprinting Class

Summer brings more time for studio work and I've set up a huge creative agenda for the next couple of months. To warm up, I began with a new demonstration print for next fall's class which illustrates a lot of skills and techniques in one fell swoop.



The photo above shows three "spot" colors being printed at the same time using three squeegees of various sizes, each for one color. The challenge was to keep the inks separate during the printing process. I printed 40 prints without a hitch!




The Dreamer, 2009
screenprint

This demo print was made using the "master image" technique. The main image was created on transparency from a collage of hand drawing, a photograph, and found imagery. Once the transparency was finished, it was used as a guide for making paper and blockout filler stencils for the first few layers of color, building the print. First printed layer: the background tranparent green. Second layer: the transparent purplish color of the flowers and leaves. Third layer: the dark green of the vines. Fourth layer: red lips, yellow dress, and blue sky, all printed in succession on the same screen and requiring a lot of finesse (seen in the first photo above). And then finally, layer five: the master image produced in a photo-emulsion stencil, in the dark mauvey color, finished and defined the image.




The Dreamer (version 2), 2009


This screenprint is the same except for lack of green background color. When I was printing the first layer (green), I had many problems achieving a smooth, even tone, the filler used to create parts of the stencil weakened and came out as I printed, and ink kept drying in my screen. It was frustrating! I stopped printing after the 15th print, with 25 more sheets to go. As with many things in art and life, when problems were encountered with Plan A, I had to rethink things. Plan B: Continue printing the rest of the layers on all 35 sheets, resulting in two versions of the screenprint.