Happy Birthday to you!

So, for my last screen-printing project I decided to recreate the mood of a birthday party. The specific memory that I’m working with is from one of my Dad’s birthdays when I was a kid. I remember we always used to get simple frozen Sara Lee cakes for our parent’s birthdays until we were old enough to make them cakes. So this is one of those simple birthday cakes. The drawing/screen-print is coming from the point of view of a child. That’s why certain elements are exaggerated, like the size of the cake, and the colors. The colors were inspired from different ice cream flavors. (Chocolate, raspberry, mint, orange sherbet) The bright colors represent selective memory. This part of the memory can chance really easily, personally & collectively. These are the parts of the memory that are exaggerated from a child’s perspective. I’m hoping that this can remind my audience about some of their memories or experiences. The brown color that I chose for the photograph is my permanent memory. This part of the memory doesn’t change for me, and makes it more personal. The photograph is simplified in a way that I think others can relate to even though it’s of my Dad, Sister, & I. I have a serious of prints on different papers. I think the print on the white paper is the most successful, but I really wanted to explore other possibilities on other types of paper as well. I also printed on silk dupioni & cotton sateen, but I’m still working with those so I’ll show them later.

OH! and for those of you who know a little about screen printing instead of burning my screens from transparencies, I used machine embroidery on white organza. I scanned my drawings into the computer, cleaned up my image in photoshop, transferred it into pfaff 4D software, and digitized it so that my embroidery machine would embroider my design. It was a long weekend trying to figure out how to use my machine & the software, but it was worth it!! Now I have a basic idea of how to do this process. I’ll have to keep working with it to get better at it, but that comes with every process.

Birthday Print #1

Birthday Print #2

Birthday Print # 3

Birthday Print # 4

Birthday Print # 5

Birthday Print # 6

Birthday Print # 7

Birthday Print #8

Birthday Print # 9

Birthday Print #10

Birthday Print #10

Birthday Print #10

Digital printing/Screen printing workshop

A few weeks ago I went to a digital print/ screen printing workshop with a visiting artist, Anne Shaefer. The workshop focused on digital printing coinciding with hand printing. We focused on the potential mark making that each medium could generate. It was really fun exploring and integrating both types of media. I explored digitally printing first and then screen printing over the digital print, and vice versa. When I screen printed first certain pigments acted as a resist. The results depended on how transparent or opaque the pigments were. Basically I just explored the processes (digital printing was new to me!) and made samples which sparked ideas for further experimentation. Since then I’ve done a some more sampling with the digital printer & I see myself using this process for my work in the future. It’s always exciting to see your designs actually on fabric! Here are some of my samples…

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 2

Sample 2

Workshop sample

Cotton Sateen1

Cotton Sateen2

Linen1

Linen2

Sample Print