Saturday, February 19, 2011

Tweets From My Letterpress: Ongoing!

My "Tweets from my letterpress" project is still going strong! But as I am the type of artist that spends a majority of her studio time researching and planning, the finished product is a ways off. (I might be asking for some tweet submissions in the near future, so keep your eye out!) In the meantime, I've been putzing around the studio; playing around and practicing some of the techniques I'll be using on my final project.

Setting Metal type:
I've often joked about how bad-ass a Seamstress Street Gang would be. You know- like in Anchorman? When all the news teams meet in the alley and brawl? C'mon! What's more threatening than seamrippers and burning steam irons! Anyway, I find this concept hilarious and after much consideration I've decided my street name would be Feed Dawg. Anyone else want to join my gang? What would your street names be? (This piece dedicated to my Pickle Crew Ladies!) I love the color-play in this print: I started with an uber-feminine baby pink and then splattered some violent red in there. HA! Am I the only one who finds this so damn funny? (Probably. Oh well! Hahahaha...)

Photo-polymer Plates:


Making a polymer plate is, in a lot of ways, similar to burning a photo-emulsion silk screen. You use a transparent negative to block all the areas of the plate you would like to wash away. Then you expose the plate to intense light, and soak and scrub all the unwanted emulsion away. You're left with a raised, reversed image that you can put on a press and print with.

The backs of the plates are metal so we use blocks of wood with a magnetic top to lock the plate into the print.

Swoon!


I liked the Burrow shade of orange but it was a little light so I had a chance to play around with color-mixing on the plate. Yay!More coming soon!