Just some clips from this weeks drawing night

I made the screens with the plastic and flexible frames.

The first round worked, this round, the second round didn’t expose at all.

Ideally the process would be a wash out I n a bucket or shower to clear the screen.

-removable of screen could be better. Maybe stapling a mesh to a wooden frame. Exposing, cutting out the mesh. Then attaching to a new frame of different material.

Materials?

Could you construct larger images with pieces together torn out screens?

I buy art supplies often and now I’m attempting to learn the tools. I know just a few simple tools can make great work, but I also like to try stuff out. Right now I’m working on learning this brush pen and these water colors. Limiting my palate with colors has me focus more on light and shadows, how I can blend to get more range. The brush pen is all about flow, and seeing what I can accomplish with just one tool. I just try to keep it all in my bag, so I can work on it regularly.

I enjoy making pieces like this in my sketchbook. I notice there are better design choices I could have made, but that came through in hindsight. Manila those choices have to do with lettering. Sometimes these pieces don’t do well, but I. Enjoy making them. I love creating narratives.

Just exploring design with this piece and seeing if I can take it further. I notice it can be more

02.03.24 - yesterday I was attempting to make some flexible diy silk screens and they all came out bad. Unusable. I had another screen ready and I burnt the fronts for these CMYK shirts. I picked up a course on how to make a collection and it’s presented some interesting ideas. The three collages that I’ve turned into CMYK prints all orbit around a theme. The journey, the path, using your gift to interact with and experience the world.

I realize to get better at clothing I’d like to learn how to make better graphic tees. I can focus on art and translate the ideas of my work to tees and remix them. I’d like to have a season where I just focus on making a lot of Loose one off tees. Then I can start bringing things together for collections. Doing small collections of five pieces.

These first three CMYK shirts are going to be an exploration of how to make better and easier. Developing a system or a grip of systems.

I’ve been doing CMYK prints on t-shirts the past couple of months. I like how they’ve been coming out. I notice that just putting the art on the shirt doesn’t make it a good shirt. The shift from collage to t-shirt require a shift in perspective because the context is different. Design skills come into play more. Sometimes I struggle with the balance. Often I work things out while I’m making something. With printing with making clothes it’s all in the planning. Most times you work it all out before production starts.

The idea of a few simple tools comes from the Julia Cameron book, “The Artists Way”.

The phrase is an affirmation that says “With a few simple Tools my creativity will flourish”. In the original collage I tied this idea to pro skateboarding. I think it’s dope how skateboarding can take someone across the world. I think once anyone finds something they enjoy or their gift it can take them to beneficial spaces.

When I’m at work, I can listen to things. I’ve spent a good amount of time listening to older print process breakdowns and illustrators breaking down comics. I enjoy learning about printmaking and for my own practice illustration and drawing hold more weight now. Being able to put the idea in the sketchbook and translate the idea into different mediums is something I’m working on. Listing to how comic makers from back in the day use to build up their drawing from pencils to ink has me think in layers. Just like printing, just like painting you can build upon things in phases. The old school way newspapers in comics use to print is coming back in some people’s work. As a printmaker and multi-media artist I’m going to use some of theses techniques to my advantage. It starts with practicing some of the fundamentals.

I’ve wanted to combine my drawing and photography for a minute. I’ve tried it in the past and for me I think it’ll just be a matter of repetition. I got an older iPad now so it’s easy to combine my photos with drawings from my sketchbook. I’ve wanted to emulate Jamie Hewlett in his ability to mix drawing and photograph, but I have to take my own approach.

I been figuring out different uses for the thermal printer. With these new strategies maybe it’ll help do different color ways in a analogue approach

I’ve been wanting to translate a few of my collages into t-shirts for a long time. In the past two months I just sat down and learned how to do color separations in photoshop. Using that with bitmapping I was able to translate the image into Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black screens to print the image.

Sometimes Less is more. I notice this week or the past few weeks things have been chaotic. I’ve been working on this small series of three related to the idea of fine dinning and food. Often I’ve used the metaphor of being a chef or cooking in relationship to being creative and generating art. This image is a mixture of Lino carving and digital collage (photoshop) which I turned into a screen print. I printed on fabric and singed the edges.

The piece is definitely inspired by a famous chef and I wanted to make a piece for myself that makes me think of being of Service creatively. I think that occupies a specific space where I can pursue my interests and creative integrity and you know make shit for others too. What do I wanna cook? What would I serve myself and how can I be of service. Where can I create Value?

I was trying to be extra and do all this shit, but sometimes you just gotta do what’s right for the context. Meet the goals.

I’m going to keep developing the other pieces and this one is done. I think I got some of the energy that goes into the kitchen and some of the energy you use to move the kitchen forward.

I used drawing fluid and screen filler from speedball to do this test run. I’m going to keep experimenting till I have something I can use often. This type of screen would be great for paper works or ruff clothing printing. I’m looking forward to the clothing printing.

Creativity and Service

There is a quote by David Bowie where he says “Never Play to the Galleries”. In the context of the conversation about “who is the creative work for?” If you start to make work purely for the galleries, the critics, and the fans you’re  are doing your own creative work a diss-service.  There are those creatives that are able to make things curated to certain audiences. But what’s interesting and inspiring to me is when artists are able to give people what they didn’t know they needed by following their own curiosity and developing their own standards.    

I think it’s important to follow one’s own sense of curiosity, interest and inspiration. Being able to do something out of skill is cool. Though some of the best creative work I’ve seen has come from mixing skill and emotion. Some of the coolest stuff I’ve witnessed has come from a strong personal “why” behind the work or just having fun. Expression.

So often  I ask myself what energy are you exploring and trying to generate? When you start making art in order to try and gain others approval, it can become easy to lose your own sense of validation and taste.

The energy you feel, the thoughts you think, what you explore all affect the work. I assume or think that the audience of the work is intelligent, and often I’ve been surprised by random people and skilled artists picking up on intentions and the creative experience present in the work.

Ultimately a creative has to define their own work’s value. You gotta define your own value as well. That value can be and is more than monetary. I think you can provide value and  service for others regardless of skill when that’s coupled with enthusiasm and/or determination. I think that starts with providing value and service for yourself. Making Art can serve many different purposes and can also solve problems.

So when I’m working on pieces for myself or others I ask myself, “What do I want out of this creative work?” “What is here for me in this project to explore or bring out for myself?”

I often ask myself this when I’m working on commissions and also just for clarity in my own work.  Generating dialogue in this sense serves me to focus and hone in on the ideas and energies that I love in regards to whatever I’m working on. This way I can approach work with more clarity and intention.

I got a request to create a bong design from an old coworker. Honestly it took me a long time to get to. I wanted it to be simple and I also wanted to emulate the loose style of a local skate shop. I really enjoy wearing their shirts, they just feel simple, playful and loose. I was excited to finish this design because I got to incorporate halftones into the design itself. Printing came out just like the mock up.

I also took this as an opportunity to generate stickers from the design, cause I’m thinking about future drops and creating cool experiences for customers.

Just something fun.

Where this idea took me was thinking about when smoking weed was fun and it generally occurred with friends. I feel like people who smoke or have smoked all have that story of a hilarious or magical experience. Or just something really dumb that’s funny now.

What’s crazy to me is that people out here in Cali be rolling around with bongs in their passenger seats, taking rips on the highway.

Lol, beyond me.

I’m excited about how these packages turned out. Sometimes presentation adds that extra touch.

I came up with the idea to print the header and add texture from one of my previous designs while I was outside

These are the initial testers that I sent out to friends and customers. I put the design together using affinity and illustrator and then screen printed on some card stock.

I’m not sure how people will respond, but I think it’s a cool touch. Takes it in the direction of being official. Wanna look into more eco-friendly packaging cause just to see. Also thinking about looking into Japanese packaging design, because I think they do it well. I took me awhile to throw out just the box from my posca markers because it was designed well.

Simple touches.

So I’ve had an interest in using my photography in my illustration work and my collages. Basically I wanna draw on top of my photos in an analogue way. In screen printing you can use halftones to show gradients and different tones all while printing one color.

The issue for me right now is using photoshop to adjust the black and white of an image mixed with adding half tones. Because printing can add more ink to the image i’ma try lightening the image with my next attempt.

Unfinished Legacy has a decent video on YouTube if anyone is interested in the step by step process. I think if you type in “Unfinished legacy” and “halftones” it should come up in search.

I’ve also thought about different methods to just work in my sketchbook. Like using a thermal printer to print images, but then realizing that the thermal printing fades with time.

I’m going to keep exploring halftones and other print related ideas in terms of transferring photography.