Nostalgia, Parts 1 and 2 (Also, more openings/receptions!)

At the end of my last blog post, I said my next post would actually include artwork I made. So here is some. Even if I am mostly showing it to get people to come see it in person at one of my artist's receptions tonight.

This was done for my life drawing class. The assignment was to do two drawings, wherein two or more figures are interacting to create a narrative. I did my drawing on frosted mylar, exposed it to a screen and printed it, then erased and changed a few things, and repeated. My professor was surprisingly okay with my cheating on this.
My friend Rachel, who is the other person in these prints, was one of those pretty girls making ugly faces that was making the rounds on the internet a while ago. (Third from the bottom on that link, the one with the shot from below her chin in the middle) She has the best face.
It's a fun and silly set of prints. I'm happier with the first one, but it was an enjoyable way to go about things. I haven't really used this aspect of multiplicity that print offers in this way before, and I think it was a good little exercise all around.

Also, you can see these two prints (and others) tonight at the opening for the U of U BFA/Alternative show. It's at the The Felt Building downtown tonight (341 S Main St. Salt Lake City, UT). Here's the facebook event.

I've actually got a small backlog of art to post about, so readers of this blog, you have seen almost none of the work that's there. This diptych is downstairs as part of the Alt show, but I have 4 pieces upstairs in the BFA show as well.

Also, 35x35 is having their awards ceremony/reception tonight. They'll announce winners of things around 8.

There's tons of other awesome art things happening around the city this gallery stroll, too. I have friends showing at Alpine gallery, and there's a bunch of stuff around 2nd south and 2nd east. It's going to be hard to get to all of it tonight!

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.

Jealous

I pulled my very first screenprint yesterday! Woo!

Screenprinting is different. It will take some getting used to, for sure. I like how immediate it is. I like being able to draw something and just have that be my print. I like it for a lot of the same reasons I like doing photopolymer plates. It suits my style well. But it's very different to print, and I've got a long way to go before I'm really comfortable with it.

So in general, I'm happy with the image on this one, but not so much the printing job. But I'm happy enough with the image and easy enough on myself for this being my first time that I'll show it off a bit anyway.

As far as what it's about and whatnot, I think I'm going to leave most of that unsaid rather than go into detail and share everything going on in my life like previous blogs. I think the little girl is a younger version of myself, but I'm not really sure. I wish sometimes that the people that mattered most in my life were more proud of the things I do that I'm proud of. But I'm trying too see more good and be more happy lately, even if I do want to talk about stuff like that. At least in this piece, I think I managed to do both, say something that's been on my mind heavily and not having the art be sad.