Drawing on vellum
I’ve been doing most of my drawings for screen printing on vellum these days. Vellum is basically really nice tracing paper and takes the ink nicely while still being transparent enough to expose with. The image here is black ink on vellum, on top of a two color screen print. I like that the drawings look good by themselves and are a more direct method to transfer to a screen than using a digital print from a scan or photo of a drawing.
Figurative Works at San Joaquin Delta College
I have a piece in the Figurative Arts show juried by DeWitt Cheng, and I’m planning to be at the opening at San Joaquin Delta College. Reception October 6th, 5-7pm. Here is the link to the web page they put up for the show- Figurative Works.
Political Kabuki
I made this print around during 2004 presidential elections.It is titled ‘Political Kabuki’ and was inspired by the fear mongering centered around the election. Here’s a little blurb I wrote about this piece. Happy Election Season.
‘Political Kabuki’ is a term coined by Andrew Bacevich and popularized by Noam Chomsky and the Internet based blogosphere. Bacevich suggests ‘Through tacit agreement the two major parties approach the contest for the presidency as political kabuki, in which the players know their roles and everyone sticks to the script, striking poses that cannot be taken seriously.’ I chose to portray Bush and Kerry as soul-less marionettes, more entertainers than leaders. In their dance for the White House the candidates drape themselves in the American flag, competing for ‘Miss Patriot,’ in front of a backdrop of the burning towers. They each promise vengeance and security, manipulating the public to push their own agendas of war, fear, and ignorance through slight of hand, and puff of smoke. They each warn of fire and brimstone to those who are not entertained.
This has been the funnest series I have done in a while. On the edition on bamboo (2 posts back), the registration is super tight, and these weren’t registered at all. One of the things I hate about making reductions is that the colors don’t overlap how I like, so it was nice to get a little crazy. The way the colors layered adds a lot of depth and makes it more interesting to me. I’m planning some bigger ones like these on paper, and some on bamboo.
