Further Silkscreens
This week:
I scanned in my linocut results digitally in order to utilise typeface and line tools to experimetn with how certain text layouts may look on the page before committing to burning the screen. This saved me a considerable amount of time and also the cost of the screen / ink themselves, so is definitely a core part of my professional practice as an illustrator.
After finding layouts I liked, I mixed the ink. This was a considerable challenge as it was the first time I did this with acrylics - I did not have access to an orange colour so tried a 25/25/50 mix of Red, Yellow and the acylic screen medium. It took alot of micro-adjusting back and forth to find a shade that I was happy with - given the chance to do thsi again I would definitely experiment with my colours first, note down the mixture that I had success with and then go back to designing my font thumbnails. I chose orange as I thought the analogous colour scheme would allow the nice linocut design to not get overshadowed by the thick, saturated font whilst also juxtaposing against the harshness of the message that it is sending.
Results below!
I added some texture to the Ice Melts, I really wish I added alot more. I was worried it wouldnt quite work and ruin the print, but I think regardless it would have been a useful experiment to see the relationship between illustrative interaction between the net-like texture and the solid, saturated relief ink.
I think these are great!
I am very proud of how they came out. While I think I could iterate on this work easily to achieve better results - I achieved my goal of utilising my experimental approach to printmaking to produce a result that is high quality, replicatable for “commerical” purposes and authentically representitive of me as an illustration, making it really ideal to put in my portfolio to expand my professional horizions after uni.
One issue I ran into is that a number of the screens that I used to print text were crinkled from poor storage. I wasn’t sure how this would effect my prints, but in practice they absolutely add a huge amount of varience, unpredictablity, blemishes and, most importantly, they prevent you from properly stretching the screen across the frame tightly - which stops you from being able to evenly push ink through the screen.
I now have a number of A3 posters that I would be comfortable making clean prints for for my final show, however, I am
really keen on experiementing with a potential A2 output to use inplace / alongside these results, I am finding that the the use of simple imagery alongside repeated phrases makes for a really striking and compelling piece, and I think going bigger is something that would look great in my style and perfectly encapulates the spirit of my protest art led project.
This will come with a number of considerations and challenges:
- Time! This would absolutely be something that that I would need to produce with minimum planning going into it. To properly manage this, it may be a good idea to finish some A3 posters for the final showing just incase my result is either incomplete or not good enough by the time the work must be prepared for gallery.
- Concept!
While this is slightly mitigated by the sheer amout research, reference imagery and clarity I have on my chosen topic - There’s a chance that this could be “biting off more than I can chew” in terms of figuring out what aesthetic choices are appriorite
for the size.
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Execution! I simply have never worked at this size. I probably do not have access to an A2 screen so would need to collage this from smaller A4 screens. This puts a huge amount of pressure on the technical execution skills - and while some number of mistakes will add to the impact of the piece, some of them will ruin it - and losing an A2 print worth of work is a much bigger timesink than losing and a3 or a4 poster.
READING: