Yellcyenta!

 There it is. The product of my stencil failure. I badly want to cut a new yellow stencil and print at least one the way it was intended to be. I'm still so annoyed about it. Art-related mistakes don't ever bother me this much. I don't know what makes this different, but I feel like I need the closure on this print... sweet violet closure.

 After I printed my 12 violet-less prints, I played with the stencils a bit to fill the time. These prints makes me feel even stupider that I missed the violet, because there is obviously violet all over the place. The background here is one of those marbled prints I did for project #2. I printed the magenta stencil and flipped it around before printing the cyan. The waxy nature of the transparent base had an interesting effect on the transparent ink. Auras everywhere!

Three more followed. I printed the magenta stencil on a few sheets. Then I took all my cutting scraps and scattered them around. Printed it once in cyan, flipped the sheet around for the next, and added one more piece before printing the last. I like the result. They're playful and vibrant. I do enjoy the process. Printing is quite zen. I'm beginning to consider how I can continue to print on my own at home after the class--sustainably.

I'll be posting a few more of the watercolor crayon project prints before the weekend is out.

じゃね。

Ugh...

It was just one of those days.

It started with trying to finish my CSS homework last night. The padding went completely out of whack on a page and I still have no idea what is causing it. The work is technically easy. The problem is that we have to modify someone else's old, somewhat deprecated code. Trying to sort through 700+ lines of messy code for a simple assignment is no bueno. Because of the ridiculous amount of time it took to do almost nothing, I didn't get a chance to work on the next silkscreen project, which is a self-portrait (...that I'm severely lacking inspiration for, too). The bro called up in the midst of the coding hell, seeking help for his upcoming finals. Looks like I'll be sacrificing a Saturday to the badass sister goddess.

Didn't get enough sleep, ran late getting ready for school and power-walked in the finally winter-like cold rain. Then stood at the bus stop for 20 minutes in said cold rain, waiting for the very late bus. Power-walked/jogged through puddles to class, which I was sure I would be late to, earning a 'tardy'... a college class...with tardies. Made it to class before roll call! HUZZAH!

We had our critique for project #3, the CMY transparent layering dealio. I quickly became deaf to any praise when the Prof pointed out that there wasn't any violet in the piece. No violet. NO VIOLET.

NO FREAKING VIOLET.

I spent six hours cutting those three stencils and...

I CUT THE YELLOW STENCIL WRONG.

How it was supposed to look...minus the rage.

Yep. So after my heart had sufficiently shriveled into a raisin, I spent the rest of the class cleaning stuff and preparing stuff since I don't have a design for the self-portrait yet. TIME WASTE.

Having a really hard time getting over that mistake. Printed 12 editions of it and I was so happy with the result and I was done early. If I, or anyone else, had noticed that I didn't have violet I could've re-cut the yellow stencil and printed at least a few correct ones. But now it's too late and I failed the assignment. Ugh...

So frustrated.

I brought them home, so I guess I'll post my fail print soon.

*grumblegrumble*

Dissolving...

'Refresh'

 With my screen and equipment all sorted I dove right into project #2. Draw directly on the screen with water soluble crayons and pencils. Flood the screen with transparent base. Let it sit and dissolve for 5-ish minutes. Pull the impression. Clean the squeegee and pull until it transfers as much as possible. Done!

Left: The abstract was my first attempt. I happened to have some old Staedtler watercolor crayons that had been sitting in my room for 15 years probably. Ha! I wasn't sure if they would work so I went for something loose design-wise and thickly layered to test the limits. Turned out way better than I expected. Vivid and almost exactly as it looked on the screen. Some of the topmost black never transferred, but it was a good first test.

'Callas'

 Right: Spent a little more time on this one. I've wanted to do something with calla lilies for a long time. My mom likes them and I worked on it with her in mind. She likes purples, too, so that's the color scheme. I was a bit floored with how nicely it printed. Didn't lose much pigment. There was a little dry area in the top right that needed a little help. Otherwise... I like!

The process uses/wastes a huge amount of transparent base. One way to get a little extra mileage out of it is to swipe the leftover base (which is laced with dissolved crayon) over the screen and pull an impression. It makes some cool marbling effects. This last little square is a section of one I took. I got a few different ones. They'll be fun to draw over and use as backgrounds in various things.

Project #3 is back to paper stencils. We'll do a 3-color transparent piece. The transparent layers will form 7 total colors. One stencil each for the primaries: magenta, yellow, blue. Overlap will create orange, green, violet, and black. It's a little tricky because the colors are really similar in value. Yellow blends with the white of the paper. The orange is more like red-orange and blends with magenta. Blue and green are really close and the violet and mixed black are almost indiscernible. I spent a bunch of time in photoshop trying to figure out what to do. Ended up surrendering to a geometric thing, which isn't very original, but if I'm quick with printing it I can do something else. Spent about 6 hours today making design masters and cutting the yellow and magenta stencils out of mylar. My hand hates me right now... like... we're not on speaking terms. Lulz. It was already cranky from drawing with crayons, but whew. I know my neck is gonna feel completely crap, too. Fun. ^^

Ciao.

First screen shots...

Oooh! Pretty colorssssss!

 It hasn't rained more than a light sprinkle since the robin-fest. It's like late spring... continuously. Sunny. Warm. It's easily the warmest winter I've ever experienced. The ankle is improving, but still hurts. Now I feel like I have an alien foot. For the first time in 25 years I can't flex or point my foot without pain/limitation. Super weird.

After the first run of paper stencil prints we've just been preparing our own screens and equipment, which is quite an intensive process. I've just finished everything, as of yesterday. Next week I'll start project #2, which is a bunch of monotypes with water-soluble crayons/pencils. Should be interesting and colorful and the subject is completely open, so I might end up with six or more different prints along with some ghosts.

 Here is the result of project #1. The stencil was cut out of a sheet of mylar. I have twelve prints that look like the above. Below is the actual stencil with ink on it. It's essentially the inversion, which looks a lot better... *sigh* Too bad. I think I'll cut another one later on without using mylar. I could barely see/handle the stuff even with my fingers doing fine. Paper, ftw!

I'd take a picture of my whole screen rig, but the Prof is super anal about seeing, hearing, or getting a whiff of a cell phone. So that might not happen until I can get my ninja on.
Dreamweaver and CSS are just getting in gear. Both classes have really involved assignment structures and websites, so I'm still trying to settle in properly.

Peace.