OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Printed Pictures Proposal

OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Printed Pictures - Final Prints

OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Printed Pictures - Product and Presentation

At first, I struggled to find a good context for my prints. I originally created the illustrations with editorial illustration in mind - as that was the sort of work most suited to my author, and what I felt best reflected her the most. They're designed to work as spot illustrations in a magazine or newspaper - such as the Guardian, for example.

The issue was when presented as a print and a product, it was difficult to tell what they were, or what they were about. To add a small bit of context to it as an overall product - I created a slip to hold my prints and added a small label to them so people approaching them for the first time would understand what they were created about

This is what the final prints look like as a set, and how they will be handed in as

OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Printed Pictures - Final Printing & Process mistakes

At this point having got my positives ready to go, I finally exposed my final screen. In order to make sure the colours were accurate to what the digital colours were, I used a specific range of acrylic shades from the Library - this also meant the acrylic was fresh, and had less chance of being too thick or too runny with it being brand new. 

There were a range of mistakes that happened whilst I was printing - A lot of them had to be thrown, however, I found that by reducing the size of the screen and the print it made printing considerably easier to do. I definately began to end up with some more passable prints as opposed to consistent bad ones - which I think was a lot to do with this change in critera.

I managed to get the whole set printed in a day, which was definately gruelling - but I think the extended period of time dedication definately helped to secure a good outcome. The print room was also a lot quieter, so there was less stopping and starting which allowed me to go nonstop until I got some results that I was happy with.

Once the printing was done, I selected the best of the outcomes and cropped them down to A5. This is the end result:

Overall, I was quite pleased with them as a set. The black layer didn't come out 100% how I wanted it to on a couple of them - but due to their size and the cropping, its something thats barely noticeable. It felt very nice to have them as a finish set after struggling to achieve a good print for so long!

OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Printed Pictures - Print continued

Now I had a more concrete idea as to what I was dealing with in screen printing, I started to set up to print some more finalised work. The original revised plan was to create 6 two-colour screenprints, all at A3 set on Somerset off-white paper. 

Once again, I started to run into problems. The main issue that I had was I struggled to put enough pressure into the screen to get the colours looking as bright and as clean as I wanted them; printing at A3 required you to use quite a large screen, and being quite short in the arms meant keeping consistent pressure with the squeegee was incredibly difficult. I did manage to get one A3 print done of the first image - but it had a lot of texture to it, which I didn't like. Thinning the ink to make it print better also hampered the amount of pigment to it, so it didn't turn out as intense as the first time I printed.

After another set of unsuccessful prints, I was feeling pretty dejected about the module and I was worried about the prospect of getting a decent set of prints out of it at some point. I figured if I reduced the size of the prints to A5, it would make it a lot easier get the pressure onto the screen that I needed. It would also save me a lot of money in paper and ink, as I would need half the amount.

With this in mind, I scaled my images down to A5 and set them up as a set of positives, ready to be exposed at the next opportunity

OUIL504 Illustration 1 Printed Pictures - Print Continued & Paper tests

After making the positives and exposing the screen, I set up on the printing bed to get started. I almost immediately entered problems with the process, as I kept having trouble with the consistency of the paint; I had to wash down and reset my bed at least 3 times before prints started to come out with any degree of success, which set me back quite a bit.

The paint was either far too thick or far too runny, regardless of the amount of medium I used. I later came to the conclusion that it might have been the particular acrylic I was using from the print room, and bought the acrylic separately in an attempt to avoid it happening again. This was a particularly stressful part of the module - because no amount of printing was producing a satisfactory result and I went a good 2-3 weeks with no finished prints to speak of - however, it did give me an opportunity to test out a variety of paper to see which would be most suitable.

I ended up printing on a range of papers - Standard Matt White, SNOWDEN Cartridge and Somerset Off-white handmade paper in particular yielded a really nice end quality to them. I really liked the off-white paper, and the way it absorbed the ink - so that is eventually what I ended up moving forward with.

As a result of this particular part of the brief, I decided that in order to improve the quality of the final, I would have to improve the quality of the actual images that I was using to print from - so I re-drew them, making them a lot crisper, and adding more character to them:

OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Printed Pictures - Development Continued

After submitting our proposals and changing my initial idea, I continued to explore how I wanted the project to eventually look and feel like.

A lot of what Naomi Klein writes about revolves around the rich and powerful exploiting, bullying and stepping on the poor and impoverished - So a big force imposing itself upon a little one. With a lot of these thumbs, I was trying to capture that opressiveness - showing some degree of scale or comparison between the rich and the poor. I played a lot with the idea of poor as food - carrying on from the idea of 'money as food', then kept simplifying it more and more.

At the same time I was also doing a lot of visual research into what sort of tone and visual look I wanted my prints to have too. I liked the idea of trying to keep them as clean and crisp looking as possible - a lot like Noma Bar's work, whilst finding a way to apply that to the aesthetic that screenprinting gives stuff - much like Lucy Ketchin does. I was also really keen on the way Pam Wishbow layers her colours and shapes - using simple layers to build up a complex image, with bits of translucent ink going on. All of these I thought would be appropriate to inform the creation of my own work.

With these in mind, I drew these as inital pieces to test out in Screen printing - again, keeping the Big vs Small theme going on, destined to become 2-colour screen-prints. Using photoshop, I seperated the layers over several documents and printed them in black and white to form a positive, which could then be exposed to create a screen to work on.

OUIL504 Illustration 1 - Project Proposal - Printed Pictures

OUIL504 Illustration 1 Printed Pictures - Screenprinting layer 2, Printed Pictures development

The second layer that needed to be added to the screenprint was the red blood on the lady's shawl and dress. The alignment turned out alright actually and I quite liked the quality of the colours overlapping, but because I knew this was just an initial screenprint practice I didn't want to waste any time on finishing off the black layer, and left it as it was.

My original idea for Printed Pictures went in a seperate direction from the one I planned to use for Moving pictures; in Printed Pictures, I wanted to focus more on the ridiculous imbalance of wealth that had been created with the free-market capitalist strategies that Naomi Klein writes about - where a small amount of people hold more wealth that the poorest people do collectively.

I've always found the need/desire for money on that scale to be wastefully decadent - and this modern 'elite' reminded me a lot of the old aristocracy a lot. Therefore, I wanted the screenprints to visually represent this - lots of intricate, black detailed lines, almost reminiscent of early etchings, black & white against a solid, bold colour - A2 in size and in your face. I also thought this would be good because it push me out of my drawing comfort zone into drawing something more heavy in detail.

Eventually, after chatting with eleanor and after the faff of screenprinting the first 'test' piece, I decided that the idea was too complicated, the drawings would have taken too long and that A2 would be far too difficult a scale to work at - so I scaled the idea down as well as the screenprints.

OUIL504 Illustration 1 Printed Pictures - Screenprinting 101

Our first task for the Printed Pictures Element of this module coincided with our workshops down in the Print room. We we're given the choice between working with screenprint, working with Drypoint and Etching or working with Monoprinting and Linocuts in order to narrow our practice down. 

Though I enjoyed working with the latter few processes last year, I figured Screenprinting was something that I could probably pursue post college, when the college resources were no longer available. I've known of ex-alumni students who have set up Screenprinting services, as well as a lot of local artists such as the likes of Drew Millward. 

In this instance, the task to to eventually produce either a series of prints or a book of them to present in an exhibition at Colours May Vary, an art book shop down in the Leeds Art Gallery in Munro House. In order to get to that point though, we need to hone our printing skills to become experts in producing such high-quality prints.

We had a print induction in which we prepped a series of screens ready to use. We also had to produce an illustration that we could use to screenprint, so I created this 3-colour image continuing the work i'd been doing on the Moving Pictures side of this module that could be broken down and screen printed.

One thing that happened as soon as I started printing was that I immediately regretted making it a 3 colour print. I only did a series of 6 initial ones to begin with, but each run of colour requires you to take apart, wash down and reset everything ready for the next go - so by increasing the number of colours you use you double, triple, quadruple your work.

This didn't put me off, though so I continued to plough through. The first set of prints didn't have enough medium in the green, so the edges didn't come out as sharp as I'd wanted them

I managed to get two colours down in one session, but didn't have time to finish the blacks, so its something i'm going to have to do later

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As for the process though, I've really taken to it - its super fun to do! Even though at times you often understand why digital printing came as such a blessing when it was invented. I definately feel comfortable in pursuing this as a long term thing over the next couple of months.