I Started Metalsmithing Today but I Did Not Have My Camera so Here is a Picture of My Pants

See title, pretty much. My first day of metalsmithing was today and I soldered a tiny, abstract sculpture and it was the most exciting experience of my life re: metalwork. Oh jesus god I am so full of ideas regarding metal art right now.

The metal studio is kind of hilarious in how things just disappear into air in front of your eyes. I was sawing some 18 gauge copper plate today and my saw blade completely vanished mid-stroke. It didn't break- it was just there one second, and the next it wasn't. A bit of silver solder also made a break for freedom when I nipped it off a bit too wantonly at the soldering station. I am going to be very poor in bits and pieces of solder and saw blades at this rate.

Since it's getting unpleasantly cold in Olympia now, I finally went out and replaced my art pants (the ones with more holes than fabric) with some that wouldn't leave me with selective frostbite. They were very boring until they were attacked by an OCTOPUS in my screenprinting studio.

(They also suffered a bleach attack to make the octopus stand out a bit more, but it hasn't set all the way yet and isn't that noticeable).

I'm getting increasingly artistically blocked with screenprinting lately. I feel like I've exhausted and/or gotten bored with my little collection of stock vintage images and ephemera, but my digital design skills are craptastic (it's kinda fucking embarrassing to be 21 and an artist and barely know my way around Photoshop and Gimp for digital art purposes). And my traditional drawing style really doesn't translate well to screenprinting- it's too messy and while I'm learning to think in layers, I'm really not all the way there yet. Screenprinting is all about clean lines and graphically interesting composition, and I'm all...yeah.

But holy shit metalworking. I am still with the glee.

I liiiiiiives!

Oh, internets, I have not forsaken you. But I start classes again in two days, and I had to go on several necessary epic adventures before I was chained to Olympia. Also I lost my camera cable.


Also also, my in-house artistic inspiration and studio mate just left our house for a fancy shmancy artist's collective in Oakland. I made this for them before they left.

Das front.

Unt das back.

I'm really happy with it. I think I need to get my bleach out more and play with it.


MICHAEL I WILL MISS YOU FOREVER OR AT LEAST UNTIL I COME TO THE BAY AREA NEXT.

I have photogenic housemates, Part the Second

Quick post before I get back to more important matters (read: drinking fauxmosas). This is a t-shirt I deconstructed fer funsies to match the skeleton print I put on the front. It's surprisingly easy to do the back design, took about five minutes total. Now that I worked out the basics of it, I'm going to start experimenting with the holes and placement. Bonus points: requires exactly no sewing, which I'm pretty incapable of anyways!

Rasterbation and Screenprinting, Part the Second: Some Ideas Come to Delicious Fruition

AW FUCK YEAH.

Tell me this doesn't look seriously cool. I'm pretty damn pleased with it- I was going crazy trying to find a blank throw away shirt to test this screen on, but then I remembered my left over Arches 88 paper and decided to just make a quick print. It's dirty- I used fabric ink because I couldn't find my acrylic- but it's gooood. Oh so good.

I ran a couple of shirts today, now that all three new screens are touched up and functional. I used one really nice white tank with the Psyche image:

I like how the image disintegrates over the lace, I might experiment more with that on a negligee I have.

And I worked a skull in white and black (the black version is on a beat up ribbed tank, so not much love there).

PLUS I started experimenting with different parts of the octopus stencil. This is the concept I've been rolling around in my head all along, isolated the tentacles and printing them separately on different parts of clothing.

Poll: More tentacles? Perfect number of tentacles? Less tentacles? (not actually possible on this shirt, but in the foooture, maybe).

Productive weekends FTW, y'all.

New screen designs, and working out the kinks (in the not fun way)

I burned new screens today! But I've done that before- more importantly, I learned how to fix my fuck-ups on the new screens today. This is an important step, because my training with fine art serigraphy dictates that when you mess up a burn, you rend the fabric mesh asunder with your bare hands and rip your acetate stencil into bloody, floppy pieces for good measure. Which is all well and good in someone else's studio, but here in the land of limited resources (reality), I need to stretch my emulsion and screen shelf life as far as humanly possible. So when I fucked up all three burns today, I got creative with my emulsion, filled in the holes with a paintbrush, and wiped out my mistakes with stencil remover.

I'm not completely in love with the images yet, even less so having spent all day touching them up because I can't afford to wipe the screens and re-emulse. I used the rasterbater to enlargify some icons I've been playing with in gimp (a skull, octopus and Le Ravissement de Psyche for sheer perverse fun to see if I could even make it identifiable- see results below).

I only test printed one run, with the octopus, and it was the one that let me know where all the mistakes are. Thanks, free store clothes! I'm also realizing the difficulties in pushing so much INK through the screen, since these are my first full screen prints. What I wouldn't give for a squeegee that's the actual size of my screen to maintain some consistency- that might have to be where the money from my next etsy sale gets funneled to.

(Do you like this shirt? I am Not a Fan, but I am working with it. It will end up in one of my friend's closets, or the cheap-fuck-up-section of my etsy)

Babyclothes and screenprinting idurrs

My good friend Puck recently had a child (Graciella Holly Adams- happy belated birth day, beautiful), so I printed up a some baby clothes for her before I visited them today. They came out really cleanly, which is nice because I was expected to run into some problems not being able to stretch the fabric over my shirt board. I'd like to start selling kids clothes in my etsy- my new favoritest source for screenprintable items, the Westside co-op Free Store, has them in overflowing boxes, so I'm set for raw material.

I was also planning to print out a bunch of transparencies today at Evergreen, but it's fucking labor day (although- weirdly! we're at the beginning of September, not May. SOMEthing's wrong!) so the library where my beloved photocopier lives is closed. I have IDEARS all prepped, though, so that's the plan of action tomorrow.

Bike Chain My Heart

I've been mucking around with combining images from different screens lately, mostly because I haven't had a chance to print out any new transparencies to burn. This is my favorite one from today- I tried really hard to get the bike chains to overlap just right, and it came out nicely. It's a fun artistic stretch to design by combining a limited number of elements instead of just finding more images to work with.

(This is what it looks like adorning one of my numerous photogenic housemates)

Fuck This Noise: Reducing Chatter in Linocut

Whoever came up with the phrase"Fuck this noise" was almost definitely a dissatisfied blockcutting artist trying to reduce chatter. I guarantee it. Chatter, for the uninitiated who still have all their fingers ungouged, is all those little lines in a block print that make shit look all folksy and old school. I generally declare filthy fucking war on chatter when I do linoblocks because I like the crisp look of positive impressions, but this also makes my life about 5 hours of work harder because you can carve away for ages and still not get all the noise. My finished piece still has some messy lines, but I'm okay with it to this degree. (also Steve the Studio Tech was about to kick me out)

The video slideshow I threw together up there is a fun little tour of about six or seven hours I spent inking up my block, cursing, carving away the chatter, inking up my block, printing, cursing, and rinse-repeating. I kept all my newsprint copies for funsies to track my progress, and it looks pretty spiffy in stop motion, plus I threw my original sketch in the beginning so y'all can see how it gets translated (I lost the "Hi" in the speech bubble because I carved it right reading, and everything gets flipped in linocut land so I just cut it out. Mercilessly.)

Here's the finished piece:

But oh wait what's this!

Oh yeah, the final assignment was for a card.

A card that likes you!

I vacillated over the sentiment for awhile, but I decided that having a nonverbal way to alert crushes that I liked them was pretty sweet and it makes me look all sensitive and adorable. The figure on the front is me, if you can't tell from the hair mess and glasses.

And of course, I slung it up on my etsy for capitalist gain. Of course.

"Making" Letterpress assignment- now on 100% less newsprint!

I finally shot pictures of my finished letterpress print so I could satisfy my capitalist streak and sling 'em up in the etsy. The bottom one I did with a rainbow light-to-dark blue marbleized roll (which is really easy to achieve on the Vandercooks with the automatic rollers). I already got the rant about shimming and cheating done when I posted the first roughs I did on newsprint, so I'll spare y'all that again. However, I was saving these in the studio so I could screenprint a speech bubble over the text as a nod to Neil's role in comic books, but I just discovered today that I burned the image in reverse, and I took it as a sign that the universe didn't really want me to print it. Also I'm freaking tired of the print dungeon.

I had my last Printmaking and Modern design class on Saturday! We did a print exchange and went to the Wayzgoose festival at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. I did both of these things highly exhausted and hung over, but incredibly it didn't take away from the COOLNESS of the Steamroller Smackdown at Wayzgoose. Artists printed huge linoleum and vinyl blocks (think 3x5 feet huge- and the average lino block fits in the palm of your hand) using a STEAMROLLER as a roller and PLYWOOD as a tympan. Here are some pictures I ganked from flickr to give you an idea:

They hung the posters on the side of SVC to dry, which is pretty frickin' brilliant when you think about how hard it would be to make a drying rack that big.

There were teams of artists inking each block. Each team got half an hour to pull as many prints as possible- when you know a little about how printing works, watching them go through the process under those time constraints is HELLA nerve wracking.

They used a carpet as a pusher blanket, plywood as the tympan, and then they put a goddamn steamroller on top of it. It was pretty incredible.

Pulling up the finished prints. Anyone who knows a little about printing- think about the registration on this thing. Just- think about it. I saw more than one HUGE piece of paper ruined by shifting it around to make registration.

So now I'm a little bit freer to work in the at home studio, although I won't be producing work at a furious pace to meet class deadlines anymore. Until metalworking starts up in October, at least!

More Stuff I Do In My Garage

I made thirty patches for the Oly Seed Exchange. Thirty! And I did it without washing the screen out in between each one, which shows that something Judy taught me about flooding a screen actually stuck. I still wouldn't do a mass run for something like individual shirts, but I'm pretty proud of my consistency here, and I only sacrificed five patches to the aggrieved printing gods.

Other shit that makes my life as an amateur garage studio screenprinter easier- wiping ink out of a screen with a sponge as opposed to the Hose of Doom. I can't believe it took me this long to realize how much less time I would have to spend on drying my screens if I did that.

Tomorrow I have another marathon session in the school studio to wrap up my hella cute linocut card (which is just a bit sappy thanks to how I've been feeling lately), then I'm skedaddling over to the Oly Seeds Benefit with the fruits of my inky labors. Oly folks- COME OUT TO THIS, THERE WILL BE PIZZA.

Thank you.

Stuff I Do in My Garage Part The Millionth

I printed this shirt up for a cutie traveling friend of mine who's passing through Oly at the moment, 'cuz you can't go wrong with bike gears and tearing shit down across your chest. I'm still perfecting that damn bike gear design, it keeps coming out uneven when I pull it for some reason. I've also started experimenting with printing on canvas patches, which I've discovered sucks up my screenprinting ink like a motherfucker and makes everything hella splotchy. Practice, practice, practice- if any Oly locals want a sweet patch (I'm doing everything from bike gears to anatomical hearts) and don't mind my imperfections, y'all should come keep me company in my garage while I bang them out.

Speaking of practice, I'm doing a run of patches and shirts for the Olympia Seed Exchange for their benefit this week (Thursday, 6 PM, Fertile Grounds, delicious pizza and I'll print any damn thing you want with this stencil). This is the first one, with tell tale I-forgot-to-tape-off-my-gutters mistakes, but at least now I know that the screen came out decently. My aforementioned traveling friend who I've pressed into being my sexy shop aide for the moment just cut the rest of the fabric for me, so I'm taking it out to the garage to ravage with inks.

Parts of me were broken long before my heart came into it

I came home from a midnight showing of Inglourious Basterds last night (SO FUCKING WORTH IT GO SEE BRAD PITT KILL NAAAAATZIS RIGHT THE HELL NOW), and I was so hyped on alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, and the usual stimulants that keep me up through midnight movies that I didn't get to sleep until 6 AM. So I started to work into this piece, which I've been rolling around my head since I finished the pedestal one from yesterday. I'm going to have a jagged cut bisecting her chest, possibly some reference to a heart around it, and the title that I'm working under is "Parts of me were broken long before my heart came into it". It's a therapy piece (like, oh, everything else I do), but I'm trying to strike a balance between too needlessly introspective and making work that's appealing to a wider audience.

There is a lot of shading that needs to be done on the chest, and I am not looking forward to it because outside of faces, my ability to shade figures is pretty useless without naked bodies in front of me.

I've been living in the print studio 9-5 (or later if Judy locks me in) most every day this week, so working in chalk pastels was a nice break. My four layer screenprint and letterpress assignment is three layers away from done, and I'm wrapping that tomorrow, hopefully. The fruits of my inky labor are to come.

On a Pedestal

Mmf, the first thing I've worked on in chalk pastel since getting home (save one shitty attempt that was more to channel angst than make art). I was shooting for a Grecian look, an interpretation of putting women on pedestals. Alternatively, I just couldn't get her legs to look right.

Letterpress assignment (with apologies to Neil Gaiman)

Letterpress is easily the most frustrating way to have fun in the printmaking studio. It requires an obnoxious application of math, forcing your brain to read upside down and backwards, and in my case, cheating shamelessly when Judy wasn't looking to haphazardly shim my type into the press with tiny bits of wood and metal. It's funny- to make something look messy and uneven takes about three times the energy and calculation than it would to make it look neat and even. (unless you decide to just accept that your professor is going to call you out during critique for your godawfully wrong press set-up and cheat, like I did)

The piece up there is the first rough on newsprint that came out like I wanted- when I finish overlaying the screenprinted speech bubble I want on there in the studio, I'll bring home my finished babies and show them to the world, and sling 'em up on my etsy shop.

The whole process- EVEN WITH CHEATING- took me eight straight hours in the studio, running on a cup of coffee and an orange. I'm so bad at remembering to eat when I work in the print dungeon at school, and my bestie who works at the nearest cafe isn't my bestie anymore, so no more surprise food deliveries (that kid seriously kept me alive on more than one marathon printing occasion last year, bless their considerate heart). Life as a printmonkey ain't easy, and I'm off to the studio all day again today as soon as I hit publish on this.

Oly Type

Homework from my summer printmaking design class- create typographically diverse alphabet from local signage. Olympia is a stupidly easy town to do this in- it only took me 15 minutes taking pictures downtown to get all these typefaces. And I left a bunch out because I didn't have time to go into all the alleys and hunt down my favorite murals.

(Props to any Oly folks who can identify where I got more than half of these from).

Dr. Sketchy's Part Two

There were two 20 minute poses at the end of the set, both of which I did in pastels. I like long poses- if I can get my work to "click" early on, I really enjoy working into a piece for a long time. When I can't get something to work from the start, it feels more like fighting an uphill battle to drag my art into something mediocre, but I'm loathe to abandon something and be stuck with a shorter length piece. Both of these clicked in an enjoyable way, though.

The second piece was a challenge to interpret The Windup Space, which is the name of the bar where it was held. I was not to only person to come up with putting a turn-crank into the model, but I WAS the only one to add a tag that said "For a good time turn crank". This piece made it up to the stage too, but it was model's choice and she went with another one.

I leave for Puerto Rico on Sunday, armed with a new vellum sketchbook, chalk nupastels, watercolor pens, and markers. I am full of pleasant fantasies involving the beach and exciting plants and doing naaathing but art for a week. Mmf.

Dr. Sketchy's Scantily Clad Lady Emporium

I went out to Baltimore's Dr. Sketchy's (if you are unaware of this phenomenon, Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School has your answers) on Monday night. I have mixed reviews- on the one hand, I missed life drawing, I like gimicky shit like this, and drinking accompanies drawing as it does stretching and MST3King in the rest of my life. On the other, the only thing more pretentious than hipsters are ARTISTIC hipsters, the mc really didn't impress (I have high standards from circus work, but still), and the soundtrack to the evening was pulled directly out of a Wed Anderson film. The Darjeeling Limited, to be specific.

Still, I got some good marker practice in, and I'm groping my way to understanding shading with prismas. I forgot my beloved chalk pastels in Pennsylvania, but Heather lent me her pastels and I went to crazy town and back with them.
There were contests, one of which was to draw the model in spaaaace. This next one got me in the running for the prize, but I didn't win anything that night. It was nifty getting picked the hang out on stage and get cheered for, though. More my scene than being an audience member.

They also did the opposite hand drawing, which I understand is a staple of Dr. Sketchy's fun time. I did it in charcoal, and carefully specified some elements to make it obvious.

One of my quickie warm ups I liked. I shyly started out with my faithful charcoal before I went media crazy.
They also did two 20 minute poses I threw some real work into, but I'll save 'em for tomorrow because this is already the Art Blog Post That Ate Texas.

New art toys!

My shading is getting better, thanks to the FIVE BRAND NEW GREY MARKERS I laid hands on at Art Things in Maryland yesterday. Funny story- this art store has known me since I was two years old and living in England, because my aunt did a goku birthday card for me that was up as a how-to in the shop for yeeeears. I've been making pilgrimages to there ever since, but I don't think they've seen me since age 16, so the owner got a bit of a shock when I walked in yesterday.

Other stuff from the sketchitybook includes a rough for a graphic short I've been tossing around in my mind for ages. I tend to get it in my head whenever I find myself romantically entangled that I should start illustrating my relationships-I used art to process everything else, why not that? It'd be damn good reading, if nothing else.

This particular one was a reflection on falling into love for brief periods at a time- weekends, weeks- as tends to happen when you travel (or when I travel, at least). For the first time recently I fell with a lot of awareness as I was falling, like Alice floating down the rabbithole and examining the objects on the walls as she descended.


Enough for today- more on all that tomorrow as the ideas germinate.

Tits and Tentacles

No scanner access until today, so y'all get my Tits and Tentacles picture, plus some sketches from yesterday. I'm struggling to figure out how to shade using prisma grey markers, but I think this picture was a breakthrough for me. Still working on it, though.


Disembodied caaat head. I feel like I'm copping Heather's style, just because of the media. I learn marker shading so slowly, but progress is beginning to happen.

That's me pushing nasty reality away from my happy bubble above, btw.

Too Much Coffee

Another in my series of "this is what I've been up to while traveling" comics. The aforementioned coffee (which was DELICIOUS) is actually responsible for three other comics aside from this one because I couldn't sleep for the LIFE of me that night.

I am slowly learned how to shade with some amount of skill. I brought my set of greyscale brush pens with my on vacation, and they're getting a workout.

That's my "going to a nice restaurant better femme up" look, btw. I didn't actually own any girly heels until about a month ago when my friend Dan gave me a pair of his for my birthday. Dan's a rockstar like that.

Reading Bubble

I need to work on my shading, but the comic journal idea is good practice. I could really use some greyscale prismas making my life easier, but c'est la vie.

James is the reason for this one- James and his stupidly good reading suggestions.

More travel comics

More comics from my travels! On my flight from Seattle to Chicago, I had this awesome, involved conversation with Muriel Anderson about performance, music, events management, and the range of emotions that accompanies it all. She let me put my ukulele on top of her guitar in the overhead baggage bin and emailed me the sheet music for a cello and guitar composition she had written. It was really inspiring for me as a performer.

Grey brush pens and a range of white prismas are my heart when it comes to comics. Swear ta god. Also, the first appearance of my nape piercing in a self portrait!

VACATION.

I'm back in Baltimore, which means a veritable fuckload of journal comics from my travels and the craziness of coming back to my high school hometown. Last night I drank a bunch of coffee and inked a mess of them, so more to come on a semi-regular basis.