Your robot knows where to go.
The pattern is a ‘QR code’ and is scannable by smartphones via a scanning ap. The technology behind them is pretty interesting, as is the developing culture around such capabilities. QR codes are physical world hyperlinks, not much different than this link to my tumblr.
Our building High Street Lofts had an open house with some of the designers and artists. It was the first time doing it so it was a bit of a learning experience. Overall it was a big success. Chris Granillo and Oree came out and hung out with their prints for most of the day. I moved 14 tons of beer for 10 hours the previous day and my back didn’t let me set up the studios as nicely as I would have liked, but it was fun and the next one will be even better.
I had a good day on Saturday at the Faultline Life Drawing session and did a bunch of drawings in the morning that turned out well. In the afternoon I thought I would experiment a little and try drawing directly on the screen and print them later, The screen’s smooth surface made it a little tricky to draw on, but it was still pretty easy. I used Caran D’ache water soluble crayons and compressed charcoal to draw on the silk screens. I used some screen filler to block the ink on a couple of the screens as well. Printing was pretty straight forward, I used a transparent base without any pigment on a couple of the charcoal drawings and they look pretty good. I mixed some bright red on some of the other prints. They didn’t turn out perfect, but I would call it a success. I’m more interested in mixing this technique with some others, rather than using it by itself. It has some exciting potential for sure.
The drawings are 5 minutes in length and under. I find there are a lot of little surprises in the quick ones, and the models can push the poses a lot more. I’ve been tearing out little blank sheets of paper from larger crappy drawings and doing drawings about a minute in length on them. I’ve been bagging them up and have them available in my studio. Most of the small ones are under $10. I’ll have a ton for Faultline’s Open Studios on November 10th which is coinciding with a building wide sale at High Street Lofts.
I printed these guys up this morning.These are the most colorful prints I have done in this style so far. I mix the ink on the screen and I’ve just been using one stencil. It’s been a long quest of mine to find a way to print one stencil and have it be unique and interesting to both make and to look at. This skeleton series has been really fun to print so far and I’ve been dropping some liquid inks on the screen to bleed out a little in select spots which is something new for me. I’ll have these and a bunch of my other brand new skeletons at the Sound Room at 2157 Broadway and 22nd Street for First Friday tomorrow in Oakland.
Carolina Parakeet
Moosifer, Ungulate of the Devil. Screen print on birch and poplar panel
I had a bunch of these panels lying around from a cancelled project so I printed them up at Faultline Artspace. I’m still trying to figure out how to best use all the space around here, but I really like working in the Drawing Room on bigger projects like this. These will be up at Faultline shortly, and I’m bring a stack to the Sound Room on 22nd and Broadway for a little pop-up show for First Friday in October 6-10pm.
I’m participating in another Oakland Under $100 this year. I’ll be printing these little beasties up on the spot and giving them out to people with smiles. It’s at Actual Cafe and there’s a bunch of other artists and musicians that will be there.
Free prints at Actual Cafe Sept 14th!
My homemade screen printing press
Busted a few of these little prototypes out to take to yesterday’s Printmaker’s Picnic in Oakland yesterday. I was able to print a couple of runs of little cards with my website urls on the back, but cleaning turned out to be tricky without water. I used damp paper towels, which did the trick, but I ran out and had to reuse them, which was messy. We’re actually going to make a big stack of these for Faultline‘s upcoming screen print workshop series.
These little setups are going to be ideal for the beginner workshops, since they are inexpensive to produce and are just big enough to learn some basic stencil making techniques. Big metal screens are really nice to work on, but are expensive and use more ink, meaning bigger fees and bigger mess.
Where's Egon?
Egon is the second anise swallowtail to emerge at the studio, and is named after the artist and Ghostbuster. It’s been really helpful to study these little critters so intimately, and I’ve gotten a few ideas to apply to the next set of butterfly prints.
This is what my palette looks like these days
I’ve had a nice little break from my big butterfly collage but I’m ready to get back to it. I just finished a big oil painting commission so now I can move on, or back, rather. Currently this piece is about 1350 butterflies, printed by hand and cut out with scissors. Some of the butterflies are 11 colors, and all are at least 3, which is the yellow and black one, and actually I printed 2 layers of white and then two layers of yellow to get the color to pop, in addition to the 2 other colors.
Screen printed butterflies on paper
I’m going to finish this one for Faultline‘s Grand Opening Saturday May 12. It feels pretty awesome to being so close to finishing it, I’ve been working on it for close to 8 years and I’d like to start the next one, which will be 20,000 butterflies. I’ll be giving myself 2 years to finish that one. It’s going to be quite large, 12 x 17 feet or so.
