Big & Little

In college (a long time ago!) I took a semester of silkscreen printing. I needed a refresher course so I signed up for a weekend screen print class through Otis College of Art. Since the class was only a workshop, we used stencils to print from (instead of photo emulsion which gets really fine detail). I spent all week coming up with ideas and cutting my stencils.

The part that is cut out is the part that gets the ink. With linoleum blocks, the part that is left after carving is the part that prints whereas with silkscreen, it's the opposite so I had to change my way of thinking. I designed an image using 2 colors. We used contact paper for the stencil and here is what my first stencil looked like (the white part is the stencil and the green in the center will be a color).
The stripes in the half circle and the round dots in the middle were added separately on the screen.

Stencil cut with white contact paper

After sticking the stencil on the screen and taping all around, I was ready to print. My first color was orange.

ink on the screen

Next comes pulling the print. (Since I was printing and couldn't photograph it, I took a picture of classmates using a squeegee to pull the ink through the screen)

pulling a print

How does it look? I took a peek as I peeled the paper from the screen. The blue taped helped me register the paper.

the first print

Here is another look. Can you guess what it will be?

After cleaning the screen and taping the second stencil to the screen, I was ready for my second color. Since I was rushing to get done by the end of class, I neglected to take any pictures but here is the finished product. I was able to print 15 images on paper and do one tote bag.

Big & Little Owl Buddies

New Tote Bags!

A new project I've been working on is...tote bags! I had these silk screened from my illustrations. I did screen printing back in college but, with my letterpress, I don't really have the room for the set up. So, I had a local shop do these for me. I have to go back and modify my art a bit but I think they came out pretty well. They're now available in my Etsy shop, and I will be selling them at Patchwork next week in Santa Ana.

 

 

I've started with 4 designs- Flower Bouquet in Lavender, Birdie in Pink, Flower Garden in Orange, and Owl Buddies in Aqua. The totes are a really heavy weight cotton, made in the USA.

Patchwork Culver City

This past Sunday was the Patchwork show in Culver City, California. Since most of set up was on Saturday, I had time to walk around the show and check out cool stuff. The booth next to me was MandaLanda who did super creative things with vintage books and book pages. Even their booth walls were covered in vintage type. Another eye-catching booth belonged to Make Shop Live who specialized in recycled and repurposed goods like the bottle cap magnets on the left. Cute felted toys filled Jenny Smith's booth. I gave the "Best use of Kraft Paper" to Klai Brown's creative booth. It was the perfect background for her ceramics. Melissa Renzi had a display of her collages and last but not least, this adorable owl onsie® from Random Nicole (one of the fearless leaders of Patchwork!).

In My Office...

Owls! I have a number of owl items and here are a few.

The Kleenex box on the left was designed by Cori Dantini. You can visit her blog here and her Etsy store here. The ceramic owl in the tree was purchased on Ebay and the picture with 3 owls was done by Canadian artist Susan Black. You can visit her Etsy shop here.