Silkscreen Project 6: Final

Series II

Within a series, there is an inherent sense of commonality and conformity. However, at what point does that begin to break down and where does a series become a collection disparate forms.

This project seeks to explore the conceits of individuality and identity and how disparate elements change and affect said ideas.

Silkscreen Project 6: Thoughts

For my final project, I had a large number or ideas, inspired mainly by the works of the Dutch painter Piet Mondriaan. I wanted to work within series (as per my previous work in the class) but instead of simply repeating a simple monochromatic form, I was going to print a complicated shape utilizing the primary colours and black.



After talking with my professor, I decided to further expand this project by not only altering the internal colours of the shape, I would also alter the backgrounds to add a further element to the conversation.



Eventually though, after much more sketching and more talking with my professor, I decided to simplify this idea (which had become quite large indeed) and just print a single monochromatic form on an a variety of backgrounds.



In an effort to avoid have a very static project, I devised an organic system for choosing the background colours in which I started with either blue, red, or white and simply kept adding red, blue, or black respectively to the inks so that the colours printed would presumably change over time. Due to the unique problem of the screen drying and my haphazard almost arbitrary approach to the colour changing, the final images that resulted were not static at all but instead full of a wide range of colours, tones, and textures.

Silkscreen Project 4b: Reprint

Circles and Bars II

Much in the same way that I felt unhappy with my previous version of my 2-colour print, I also decided to reprint and improve my 3-colour project.

The only real changes I made were to the inks, the colours of which I darkened slightly and the consistency of which I thinned down. Unfortunately, while I did find myself having more success that previously, I do not view this project as anything more than a study and a exercise in technical reproduction.

Thanksgiving Break

For my Thanksgiving break, I decided to not go anywhere but instead work on what I saw as uncompleted or unsuccessful projects. During this time I reprinted both my third project (the 2-colour print) and my fourth project (the 3-colour print). I also logged a large number or hours doing cosmetic surgery on my fifth project (the poster project). Many of the posters were missing elements/had miss-printings which I decided to go back through all 46 of which I liked best and touch up by hand.

All-in-all I must have spent approximately 6-10 hours a day in the silkscreen studio over the break, but I really got a lot of practice in on the finer points of screen printing and I think it was well worth the effort.

Silkscreen Project 3b: Reprint

As I was unhappy with my previous attempt with this project, I decided to reprint the entire thing with a few changes made.

The main change is I decided to print the positive forms of the shapes rather than their negatives (which had actually been my original idea). I felt this allowed for a more interesting and successful dialogue between the elements. I also chose to change the colours slightly in an attempt to print them more cleanly and successfully.

Silkscreen Project 5: Poster

For this project, we were tasked as a class to each create a run of posters for a real event, specifically fifty in number, that were to be hung around campus. As a member of the students administrators for Spiral, Oberlin's genre fiction literary magazine, I decided to make posters for their spring semester general interest meeting.

In the design of my poster, I wanted to create something that was subdued in character; that evoked a more refined sensibility (as Spiral is often seen as a less serious, less professional magazine). Because of this I chose the greys, white, and black, as I felt they are often seen as clean colours; they draw attention but are not loud. I chose to print the background as I did and the specific fonts for a related reason. The uneven edges of the background I felt looked somewhat like a page torn from a notebook and the fonts were chosen as I felt they were somewhat reminiscent of those of a typewriter, what has become one of the most iconic symbols of highbrow literaryism.

Finally, in an quasi-ironic send off to all the ideals I tried to cultivate with the rest of the poster and to emphasise the idea that Spiral is not your generic literary magazine, I created the font-art word at the top, which I though added a sense of quirky dynamism to the otherwise rigid, mostly static piece.

Silkscreen Project 4: 3-Colour Project

Within the project I attempted to explore quality of reproduction, for which silkscreening is most commonly used. My idea was to create posters for a fictitious company that offered mass-produced "personalised gifts" for a variety of [Christian/American] holidays. These would then be displayed in a huge 4x4 grid on a wall to amplify the crass overwhelming, if not claustraphobic nature of the posters.

When creating this project, I was thinking about ideas of commercialisation, what I see as the ever-increasing laziness/detachment of the general public, and the narrow-minded majority-centric ideals that drive a lot of holiday cheer/celebrations in the United States.

Unfortunately, as you will see below, I have still not mastered the art of silkscreening as reproduction and so I do not view this project as complete, but more or a study in reproduction/learning experience concerning the technicalities of printing.

Silkscreen Project 3: 2-Colour Print

Circles and Bars

With this project, I decided to continue my exploration of 'repetition of form' that I started in my previous silkscreen project. I don't really see this piece as very resolved or even well produce by more of a study in both technique and concept.

The overarching idea behind this exercise was to examine the tension created from between the interactions inherent in the piece. The main source of tension was between colours: white, red, and blue (all very basic and unadulterated, used straight from the manufactures inks) and how they interact with each other and the negative space of the white card stock. This was further complicated by their depictions in the simple geometric forms of the rectangle and circle and how these shapes are used to create a certain phasing that happens within the piece.

Silkscreen Project 2: B/W Project

Series I

Many people in my class are accomplished drawers, sketchers, and/or painters but as I am not by any stretch of the imagination, I decided to instead concentrate on something I could make; on form rather than illustration. What this eventually turned out to be was a collection of 14 lines that came to me while I was musing about what to make.

The lines are separate into four groups (2-4-5-3) and together form a semi-cohesive figure that is curved on one side and straight on the other. What I tried to do with this was to print the image both singularly and layered upon itself multiple times to express how duplication of the images through silkscreening could take one simplistic shape and create a whole host of unique objects.

Unfortunately, as I am an not a very good printer, they prints did not come out perfectly clear as I have originally intended. Because of this, the project has also developed a second aspect; not only is it exploration of how duplication and scale can change an image, but also how my imperfect grasp of the process contributes to the creation of imperfect images whose degradation also add to the concept of the unique image.

Silkscreen Project 1: Experimenting

For our first project, we were tasked to use the printing processes* that we have learned thus far to create something. We were told to 'not try and make art' but instead experiment and try to get a handle on the various techniques available to us. We could use any colour of ink (it was requested that we only use one though) and any stock/material to print on.

*Processes:

Paper stencils
Drawing fluid
WD Filler
Sta-Sharp Adhering Fluid / Cut Film.

For my image, I decided to divide my canvas into four separate squares. In the top two I created a stencil with the cut film, and for the bottom half I draw images with the drawing fluid, one of which I took the negative of my painting over it with WD Filler and then rinsing the screen.

My original plan was to simply print one colour on a variety of media (cougar white paper stock and newsprint) but after trying a few runs, I decided to mix things up; this is what I ended up with.