organic seascape

I love silk-screening! It is so magical... I love the rainbow pulls. You can get so much atmosphere and mood out of combining the colors and playing with how you "slop" the ink on! I created something really beautiful tonight; can you say "Christmas Presents"? Each one is different and I've experimented in almost every one of them. Their imperfections just add character and I've placed the leaves at the bottom so they hide most of the worst ones. I love how the leaves break the frame... something I always love to play with:) I couldn't get the whole thing on the scanner, but this is the majority of it... I only did two black and the rest are on off-white flecked paper. The colors came out sooooo yummy. I got the idea for them from some fabulous "organic" experiments done by Leanne in my class (hers are really superb; she did them when there were more things still growing and she has been silk-screening for a while). Still I think all of my experiments make for a really lovely composite!

6-color Nasturtium

Here is one with two screens of the 6th color... the screen slipped, so I have some with one, two, three, and four black dots in the middle. This one is matted in gold, which the scanner kind of went crazy with. I didn't like the black dot too much (looks more like a poppy) so I kept a bunch without the black dot (see below). I like the freedom to be able to do that and change your mind as you go. If you start with enough to begin with you can have numerous final pieces! I love print-making:)

5-color Nasturtiums

For midterm I added two more colors. Here I liked how the 5-color looked and kept a few just like this. This one is matted in a slightly darker ivory mat...

4 of 4 colors

The final (for midterm, anyway, and on a diff colored paper) Mt Roberts print... I called it "Mystic Mt. Roberts" although I'm sure there's a better name for it in my head somewhere... maybe just "Mystic Mountain." This was one of three prints I did with a water-soluble stencil for the black... the other lost all detail and came out all black. I am going to redo the black plate so that I have more detail and the little flecks of other colors can be seen as windows. I was going to redo it as a photo stencil (this one was a water soluble stencil and all detail went away after I printed this!); now that I think about how I want it to look, I may do the Speedball screen filler like used in the rest of this technique (it is called a "Reduction" since you block out until you are down to your last color). You paint the filler on with a brush and it gives it that painterly look. Maybe I will try both and see which one works better...

3 of 4 colors

The deep purple came out a little funky... It is a pretty loose process, so I just have to embrace the imperfections and I do like how it came out kind of bubbly where it bled a little, which gives it more of a misty feeling...