Screenprinting

This year I proposed in my design strategy that I wanted to have more experience in a print workshop by getting back into the process of screen printing. Although the process is often lengthy and can cause some unforeseen circumstances such as a print gone wrong or misalignment when getting the registration setup, I figured the best time to do this would be this week, so I can continue trying and testing into reading week.

I initially wanted to do some work that is not to do with my practice in relation to the course as to get used to the actual physical process without the hindrance of inexperience causing me distress on some professional work in context with one of my briefs. 

My friend Matty from Harrogate has started his own zine on discordianism which he wanted contributors to provide the content, since the aim of the magazine is to get out peoples opinions on world issues, personal issues or whatever it is that they wish to write about in the spirit of discordianism. I decided that I would be interested in providing some illustrations for the zine, as it will keep up my own individual practice and presentation concerning that particular aspect of my work. 

This is the original image I created, using the object of order for the primary image, including the archaic symbol of chaos for the main focus of the piece. The scroll is meant to be compositionally not symmetrical because the principles of discordianism are skewed and often misinterpreted by those who do not understand. The insignia which may appear crude is merely toying with the fundamental aspects of life: sex, death and social interactions/turmoil. Although I am treating this analysis as if it were a piece of art I feel it is only necessary to justify the uses of said symbology and gives me a light practice for similar critiques when applying it to my dissertation.

The addition of text was necessary as Matty said that I would have to produce the text myself, as he didnt think the type guy working on the zine would have the appropriate skills to match the style of the image which only seemed fair. All I did was look up the main constituency of people that were involved with discordianism and then drew out some simple lettering that would go with the illustration.

I started messing around with colour, and how the printed outcome may look, but then after realising that for a few first prints in over 2 years, maybe 3/4 colours is a little overambitious. So I opted out and went for a combination of key black with one of the primary print process colours, in this case I went with cyan, as it met my needs for a semi dark uniform image, as magenta and yellow looked too bright and vivid to compliment the origins of the illustration.

I have already washed my screens and will be exposing them this afternoon so I can print on Friday morning with Paul, who has also taken an interest in the print process.

Im making T-shirts for the main reason that I will be printing on fabric alot for the GamesAid brief as well as my own self-directed and brief-related promotional materials, so it makes sense to get this done as a practice run.