TEMPTATION - LOVE LUST

This piece was the second attempt I had ever made in the realm of screenprinting and my first encounter with using Rubylith. I created this piece for a nationwide screenprinting postcard exchange put on by Iowa State University. The following were the requirements:

1. Theme: Temptation
2. Any editionable printmaking technique may be used (woodcuts, lithography, intaglio, photography, silkscreen, digital printmaking, etc.) NO MONOPRINTS PLEASE
3. Size: 4” x 6”
4. The 13 identical prints should be sent INDIVIDUALLY to the address posted below. Each card must be stamped and will bear the markings of travel and the postal service. (Do not send the cards together in one envelope.)

When it comes to temptation, the number one in my book is sex, sex, sex. Did I mention sex? Anyways, I of course had to do something creepy and I wanted to show love and lust intertwined. I've been working on this piece as an additional installment in my heart illustration series following Heart Attack. The kicker was that I did this completely with Rubylith, which means each color (or layer) has to be delicately hand cut with an razor blade. I say delicate because if you push too hard, you'll cut right through the clear film backing. On the other side of the coin, if you don't cut deep enough, you run the risk of ripping the red film when you remove the unwanted sections of red. It's quite time consuming and it requires far too much patience for my liking.

After I had all the layers of Rubylith cut and exposed onto the screen, then comes the four layers of ink. Seeing as the exchange require 13 identical prints, each color had to be perfect and registered very precisely, which I totally could have done better. But I suppose that's part of the learning curve.

I liked how this turned out but I'm far more excited to make it realistic as one of my illustration pieces. So keep your eyes peeled for that in the future.

BAMBOO

Look what I found at a little old ladies garage sale. Check out the tape price tag... it says drawing game. It set me back a mere 15 smackers, which I attribute to the woman not knowing what she had. Score!

PALADIN'S CREEPSHOW SHIRT

Pal is reaping the benefits of my screenprinting artistic explosion. The shirt in the pic below I made for him and his best buddy at daycare, Tyler. Now they have matching, sleeveless, tough-guy T's. They're like a little gang of cute marauding ankle biters.

Save for that adorable face, those horns only make him look that much more fierce right? Well... maybe not. Might just have to be a lover not a fighter.

MORE ART THANKS TO FLICKR FEEDS

I just went through my entire site and updated all the different sections with image slideshow feeds that are linked directly to my Flickr account. This means that I can post new work to Flickr and it will automatically show up in it's proper place on lastdeviant.com. This speeds up the update process by a thousand fold. So now I have no excuse as to why my new stuff isn't be up for viewing, other than laziness or random chaotic life events like zombie gopher attacks.

So with these new image viewers kicking ass, I have gone through and uploaded tons of images in just about every category on my site. Some of the work is a little older since I haven't posted much in a long time, but still new to the site none the less. Plus I added two new pages to check out new art in, Design and Printmaking. Design will contain everything from CD layout work to packaging. You'll find a lot of commission work in there. The Printmaking section will contain anything I've screen printed, block printed or ran through a letterpress. Each section is still being updated with my most current work so stay tuned for lots more updates in the next couple of weeks.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or issues with the new image viewers and layout. I'm hoping this will make the process of updating my site with new work much faster and easier. This should free up even more time for me to actually create instead of pull my hair out for hours rewriting and figuring out code. I really do hate coding.

ROT: ALEX'S TREASURE

It's been quite some time since I've posted a Random Object Thursday and today's is something a little different, it's actually 4 random objects.

As I was sifting through old jackets to sell in our yard sale this week, I found my daughters old rain slicker from when she was about 5-6. While rummaging through the pockets of this pink shiny plastic coat with a big pink cat on it, I found a pocket with a zipper. Inside I discovered a big metal nut, a grape hard candy, a penny and a soft rubber snake toy. All of which I could see my daughter thinking was treasure when she was that age or possibly even now. Who am I kidding, I'd even think it was awesome if I found those in my coat pocket!

EYE SCREAM ICE CREAM

This summer I decided to take a letterpress class. For those that aren't quite sure what that is, it's the old school way of printing things like they used to do for newspapers and what not. Think ole Gutenberg... got it? So anyways, I've gotten to play with both lead and wooden type. One of our assignments was to take an odd speech/grammar term from the English language and define it using one of the above mentioned presses. The word I chose was:

ORONYM:

Strings of sound that can be carved into words in two different ways. 

Ex: Four Candles / Fork Handles or Tulips / Two Lips

Bet you didn't know that! I sure didn't before this assignment. I went with an example everyone is familiar with but probably didn't realize what they were saying; I Scream and Ice Cream. I tweaked it a bit and went with Eye Scream/Ice Cream instead because you know I love to make everything a bit odd and macabre. We didn't have to do an image but I am so in love with screen printing right now that I decided to incorporate it. So I drew up a little cutesy cartoon, screened it on 30 sheets of paper and then did all the type on an old letterpress. Here's the final version:

Final Print

The orange letters were letters carved from wood as you
can see at the top center of this shot and the little text in
the poster is made from lead.

Running the press.

Close up shot of the lead and wooden type.

As an added benefit, I silkscreened my son a tank top. Just one of the perks of having artsy fartsy parents I suppose.

I LOVE INDEPENDENCE DAY

When making those firecrackers go boom, remember that today is all about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and a nationwide middle finger to the air because we are subservient to none.

Happy Independence Day and long live free America.

FEAR THE BAT: TEACHER CRITIQUE

What comments do I have to pass on to my Biological Anthropology teacher on his end of semester critique? Why, the most important bit of information that one could ever receive, FEAR THE BAT.