Saturday, May 17, 2008

Camp Silkscreen Wrap Up

(Thanks, Sarah & Josh, for the title suggestion. :)

Wow. What a truly fabulous, fun, inspiring week of silkscreening that was. I am so so so glad I did that. Getting to spend every day last week in an art studio, leaning stuff and making stuff and spending time with fun, cool, creative folks was just what my soul needed. I didn't want it to end, and I'm not sure how I'll adjust to not heading to class on Monday.


Thank you, Kat, for your incredibly insightful instruction and gentle guidance in practice. You are the BEST. And thank you Christina, Jordan and Marge for making class so much fun (and for enduring my goofy stories all week).


In all - here are the highlights of what we learned this week:
- Stretching and taping our own screens - tedious in some respects, but also very meditative - I loved it!
- making stencils - I loved this! Playing around with an exacto knife is a lot of fun to me.
- Painting screens - a great method that gives a nice "woodblock" quality to the print.
- using filler and drawing fluid to get an image on a screen. I loved this one, too, because I loved painting with the drawing fluid. My screen from this method turned out great.
- painting/stamping wax on screens for prints - I actually didn't end up trying this one, because I spent so much time on the paint screen and filler screen, but it looked really cool
- photo emulsion! FUNFUNFUN!


And then, of course, we screened our little hearts out. We did a few prints each day, but yesterday was a full on print-a-thon. It was a total blast.


I'd write more, but after spending a week doing something for myself, my house is a PIT, the laundry is mountainous, and our fridge is bare. It's time to take care of some domestic issues for a while. I'll go ahead and let the pictures from this week speak for themselves. If you are in Austin, I can't recommend Kat's classes enough. She's moving in to a new studio this month, so keep an eye on her web site and email her to get on her email list for updates on her revised summer schedule. (photo captions are down at the bottom)




Picture Captions:

  1. My Barack Obama Heart Pillowcase - the blue one is glow in the dark paint.
  2. My printing table in full action
  3. Average Jane Crafter and a spool of thread. The AJC part is actually something I burned to go with another screen (meaning I could mask the spool and just get the AJC part) but I like the way it looks with the spool
  4. My spool shirt!
  5. E.T. table action!!!!!
  6. I printed a few E.T. shirts, and I think this one is my favorite. Ironically, this was a t-shirt I really didn't like anymore, but one screen print later, it's a favorite.
  7. Really, one of my favorite things I made. I burned a photo emulsion screen with a vintage embroidery transfer from Floresita. It's one of my favorite transfers, and I've actually been meaning to stitch it for my daughter. Instead, I screened it on a shirt for now. It came out great.
  8. Sunny downtown Austin. Our last day of class was absolutely gorgeous. Mid-70s, clear skies - it was heavenly. When I came out of Dougherty, downtown looked about the way I felt - all sunny and happy - so I had to snap a picture. I love this city.

12 comments :

  1. The ET print is fabulous! Actually, they're all fabulous, but ET is timelessly wonderful. We're going to have the track down some glow-in-the-dark screen printing ink. That's too cool!

    What a fun week. We're soooooo jealous...

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  2. I love the needle and thread one! They are all awesome actually. What a fun class!

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  3. Awesome post! I would love that class one day too. I took silkscreening in high school but it's been a while (ahem).

    That deer transfer is pretty rad. I may try my hand at it on a pillow one day.

    Also, I like your logo prints.

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  4. Your prints look so great! I don't think I could possibly choose a favorite, although the logo and the vintage transfer are definitely towards the top. It sounds like you had an amazing week.

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  5. Wow! This is something I have always wanted to learn how to do as well. They all look great! Love the ET one! Great Job!

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  6. Here's that $5 I owe you for the shout out...

    No, seriously, it was an absolute delight to have you in class, Rachel. You were a really productive bunch, and so much fun to be around!

    Screening is so fun, useful and ADDICTIVE. SEW happy I could put my disease in you, ha! Can't wait to see what you come up with next.

    xxx
    kat

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  7. Fantastic work! Completely amazing, and makes me want to try it myself. I *love* your blog, and its clever design. What a find! I also love reading about Austin - a place I would really like to visit some time. There seems to be so much cool stuff happening there - culturally, music-wise, and crafting too of course! I seem some parallels with Melbourne where I live.

    And thanks for adding me to your blog list!

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  8. I can't even say which one is my favorite, because I love them all so much! I'm glad you got a week for yourself and had such a great time. You deserve it. <3

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  9. OMG i totally want to go to a class like this.. why why don't we have these here?? love the spool.. I also LOVE LOVE your doggy..love love him. cute.. :)

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  10. Oh my gosh! They look soooo amazing! I wish I would have taken that class! Great job!

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  11. Those are fantastic! I'm envious of your printing abilities. I especially ove the one you did from an embroidery transfer - genius!

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  12. Stunning work here! They just look so... professional! :) Love the logo one and the deer are just beautiful.

    ...just a wee bit envious on the opposite side of the Gulf here...

    :)

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Thank you so much for your comments! I read every single one of them. I do my best to respond when I can.

Have fun and be nice! :)
XOX
Rach