Friday, May 11, 2012

A couple more screenprints, long overdue

I've been a very bad blogger lately. It was a very busy semester, but I shant bore you with excuses.
Lucky for those of you who are interested in looking at the things I do, I was busy because I was making art. So here's some of that. I think instead of dumping everything into one blog, I'll just let this be with a couple of screenprints.
Number one, Maturation.
This is a print I'd been wanting to do for a long time, and finally got around to this semester. I remember the day in elementary school we had this lesson. Our parents had to sign papers to say whether we could go or not. It was all so terrifying.
This print was done with 7 layers. One of them (the pink background) was a watercolor monoprint layer. I repeated the same idea for each print in the edition, repainting every other print, but some of the backgrounds were ghost prints, and are much less vibrant. I like both looks just fine, but they certainly vary.

Number two, Bus Stop.
This was my final for my screenprinting class, and I figured, considering the timeframe and the amount of stress I was under at the time, that a portrait of me having a mental breakdown at a bus stop was perfectly appropriate. Surprisingly enough, I didn't burst into tears and make strangers uncomfortable at any bus or train stops as the semester came to an end. I expected to. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But I managed to keep the breakdowns to less public places this time around.
Still, I'm really interested in how people react when we see other people suffering with severe emotional turmoil. Sometimes, it's the only way to make the connection you need to, I've found.
This print was also 7 layers, but in many of them I sponged off the ink and let the screen dry, then filled in areas with screen filler. I then printed the same stencil again with the same ink, making a darker shade of the same color, and giving some nice subtle changed that implied shadows and patterns.

I'll probably blog again very soon with some shameless begging for you to buy some art from me at deeply discounted prices, so keep your eyes open! I just may do that tomorrow. But alas, now it is time for me to sleep.