Two down.

Une Forchette Dans le Grille-Pain, 5 screens, 19x25, edition of 33

Chicago Printers Guild Mystery Tubes!!

Chicagoland has been known for it's vibrant printmaking and poster art scene. At the August Chicago Printers' Guild meeting, we devised a plan to raise some funds for the beloved gigposters.com. Each tube contains 18 prints from various Chicago-based artists (including one Jay Ryan monoprint per tube!) : Jay Ryan, Dan Grzeca, Sonnenzimmer, Delicious Design League, Steve Reidell, Justin Santora, Phineas Jones, Francisco, Diana Sudyka, Kathleen Judge, Spike Press, Ryan Duggan, Keith Herzik, Steve Walters (Screwball Press), Erin Armstrong (Kill Hatsumomo Prints).
There are only ten tubes, so act fast! Check it out.

I'll be putting the last color down for the second print in the new narrative series today. It should be available tonight. More art and posters on the way!

Doesn't anybody want to see the damned sunset?

I'm back in Montreal and hard at work on some new artwork. I've been experimenting more with transparent inks, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. To the left is the first in a new narrative series. I'm really excited about all the new things I've been learning and applying to my process lately. I've been mixing some of my colors with Floetrol, which is a paint additive that printers sometimes use to thin ink (a little tip I learned at Screwball last month). It proved to be very useful with large amounts of transparent base, which tends to be a bit thick. I will be doing a lot more with transparent inks in the future. I'm already nearly finished cutting films for the second print in the series and can't wait to start printing again.
In other news, I'm gearing up for some poster events in the Netherlands and Germany, Z-Stock and Flatstock 23, respectively.
I also wrapped up an enamel painting last week, which admittedly has me wanting to start painting a lot more. It's hard to pull any energy away from printing right now, though. If I have some time this fall, I want to get some oil paint and a few small panels and see what I can do with them. I'll be sure to post it on here, provided it's not too embarrassing.
It's terribly hot in Montreal right now. I've spent a large part of today in the air conditioning, at my light table drawing platypuses.
Huge thanks to all who have been reading and getting in touch with me. That's really awesome of you, and it makes me happy. Lots of new stuff on the way!

Drive somewhere

One thing I really like about screen printing (and heaven knows there's a lot that I like about it!) is that nearly every part of the process presents new opportunities to change what the final image will look like. I'll usually sketch an image between two and five times before beginning the final drawing. Below is the concept sketch for a poster I did last month for the band, Hostage Calm. Next to that is a shot of the finished poster.
After the final drawing is inked, it is usually blown up on a black and white photocopier. I will format all the text by hand (more xeroxing, inverting, resizing, cutting, pasting, white out, etc.), and since I don't often have a fully developed plan in mind when entering the copy shop, this can be a fairly inventive and spontaneous venture. The final image is printed on film, which still sometimes requires the splicing together of films with Scotch and litho tape. I also usually touch up or manipulate the image by working subtractively with an X-Acto knife and removing toner from the film.
Each color is cut from rubylith to the key plate (the black and white line art, see right). Lately, I've been manipulating some of my rubylith films with opaque film markers. This ads a whole new element to the process, as I'm able to acheive a greater range of values and subtleties by adding tight line work to under printed layers of color. I still have a lot of exploring to do with this, but I'm definitely excited about the possibilies.

The next few months should prove to be busy for me. I'm finishing up a commissioned painting, and I will be starting a brand new paper airplane narrative series. In September, I'm off to Europe (for the first time ever!) to participate in Z Stock, a poster convention in Tilburg, Holland. Then a few days later, I'll be in Hamburg, Germany for Flatstock 23.
Some new prints will be available early next week, so stay tuned!