The characters came from a mural that I did in Errol's room detailed in a previous blog entry. That mural unfortunately had to be painted over, so when this opportunity came up, I wanted to bring these guys back to life in another medium.
Also, I've been heavily inspired by the book "The Whimsical Works of David Weidman (and Also Some Serious Ones)" that I recently picked up at Green Apple Books, and I wanted to make some artwork based on his playful forms.
After making a list of phrases that would work best with the image, I chose one that Anila told me is a common quote used in the Jain community. Thought it fit just right!
The one sunny day this week and I'm indoors most of the day...but, hey, it was well worth it!
Since I had a two color max for the print, I submitted my artwork as two tranpsarencies, one for each color layer I wanted to use.
While doing the other project, Ed, this great, hard-working staff member over there at the workshop's silk-screen section, burned my transparencies onto the silk screen itself.
They were really booked with a bunch of folks doing t shirts, wedding programs, and other massive projects that day, so I couldn't try my hand at applying the paint. Ed was the only one who could do the printing.
A sheet of the printers paper I brought was placed on the decks, and Ed switched on a vacuum that would make the paper tight against the surface. He then ran a line of ink at the base of the screen and squeegee'd the ink over the artwork.
After an hour and some change, I was able to get the second color applied on top of the last color.
Easier for me to write about this than it was for Ed to work that big squeegee!
As a tip for his efforts, I made sure to leave him some cold bottles of PBR before I left with my finished prints.
While waiting the layers to dry, I took advantage of the great print & font books they had set up in the space. In a cozy sofa section of the workshop, folks were drawing and busy with prepping their artwork to use in the other presses they had available.
The best part of hanging out in the space was seeing the faces of random people excited in working on their own projects with type blocks or hand-cranking these massive printers.
Watching people's eyes light up like this was contagious...I'd rather get infected by the unbridled enthusiasm of strangers than by bird flu any day, folks!
Here again is a link to more info about the free workshops: http://workshops.levi.com/visit/
Folks in New York & Chicago, watch out for the Levi's workshops coming your way!
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