Monoprint/Lithograph Combo

To finish off our our monoprints and lithographs in my printing class, we had to do a combination of the two. I used my mercury dime lithograph, and added some watercolor monoprinting on top. I wanted it to be very organic and simple, so as not to overwhelm the great coin graphic. I chose to use a drip motif that reminds me of rain and puddles. Here are a few images from the process.

Monoprint #2

Here's my second monoprint attempt. I love the fleshy colors in this one, but I don't like the patterns throughout the print as much as I like the patterns in monoprint #1.

Monoprint #1 Final Print

Here's a better image of my monoprint. It's still not an amazing photo, but it is more clear than the cell phone images I have in the previous post.

Stencil Ambush!

I saw this the other night while browsing the internet, and I thought it was pretty awesome. I don't think I'm gutsy enough to try this, or any sort of street art for that matter. However, I guess this is a lot less risky than what Banksy does. Maybe I'll someday become a brave enough print maker to give it a go.

Monoprint #1

Here's one of my latest printmaking endeavors: monoprinting. Monoprints are prints that can't be reproduced. There is only one of them (hence, "mono"). For our monoprints, my class used the same plexiglass that we used for our intaglio project, and simply flipped it over and used the non-glare side. I chose to use watercolor, but some of the other students decided to try gouache.

Monoprinting is all about building up layers. Each layer required for the plate to be repainted and reprinted. Because of that, this was a really long print process. However, I'm really happy with my results. Here are some images from the project. Sorry my final image stinks. I didn't have my digital camera with me when I was finishing the project so I had to use my cell.

Lithographs

Tonight I completed my lithographs for my printmaking class. I think this has been my favorite technique so far and I'm really happy with the outcome.

Lithography is classically printed using an limestone that is drawn on with a greasy crayon. However, because of costs, my class used special sheets of plastic called Pronto Plates.

The first photo below shows my Pronto Plate before printing. We had to mix digital images and hand drawn images in our design. For my digital image, I found a detailed photo of a mercury dime. I printed the image out, and then transferred it to the plate using acetone. I chose a mercury dime because this is going to be present for one of my friends who loves old money.

The second image is of my inked plate. You can see that the details pop out and that the black ink has gathered both the printed images and pen lines.

The third image shows my completed prints. I really love how they turned out. The repeating circle motif is very eye catching.

Hopefully the photos are satisfactory - I only had my camera phone with me. I will try to upload better images when I have a chance.

Some Assembly Required

This semester, I've been in the class Gallery Exhibitions. Within this class, I've learned about gallery maintenance, setting up artwork, developing posters, and other useful skills about working in art galleries. For the past month, I've work with a group of 5 other students to develop our own show in one of the display cases in the ASU art building. We finally hung all of the work for the show yesterday. I wanted to upload a few pictures to show the process of creating the exhibition.

Our show was called Some Assembly Required, and was meant to showcase work from many different areas within the School of Art. The display case that we were exhibiting in is usually pretty dull, so we wanted to put a lot of art into the space, and display pieces "salon style."

Doing a call for work was extremely hectic - I talked to nine classes in one day. However, it payed off and we got a ton of submissions. I was really worried that people wouldn't show up and drop off their work; however, only 4 artists didn't show up and still had enough to fill the case.

Overall, I think it turned out great. It was a crazy, stressful experience, but I feel very accomplished. Now, I can only hope that take down will go smoothly in two weeks. Then I can finally relax!

A week before installation day, we got together and developed a layout for the show. Of course, we changed our minds about where things should go once we got started, but it was a good launching point. Here we are at McDonald's working on the plan.

This is the very beginning of installation. It was quite exciting to see work finally being hung.

Instead of putting artist information next to the pieces individually, we decided to use a number system. Each piece was labeled with a number. The viewer is then able to refer to the list of artists/pieces that we created. Here's the the title of the show and the list.

Here are some shots of the pieces inside of the display case. I think we got some pretty cool entries. There are still some not so awesome pieces, but there was a lot more good than bad.

The display case right before we finished. We had a delicate 3D piece that went in that empty space so we were waiting to install it at the last minute.

One of my group members posted this photo of group on facebook. It was definitely one of the most challenging group assignments that I have participated in because what we had to accomplish was so complicated. However, I am really excited about how we worked together and the way the show turned out.