broadsheet comic

Photos of me(Trillian) holding up my freshly printed broadsheet style comic. Massive format. I'll find a way to document the actual, you know, written stuff later.

Left over silkscreen ink, newsprint, 17 hours hard labor, 5 hours soft labor, countless hours writing, sketching, drawing, inking, lettering, cutting, pasting, and photocopying.

master puller

Never did I think I could have so much success and have so many prints! I got up at 7ish though I really didn't wanna. Stuffed myself into the shower and prepared a bag full of snacks. At 8:00am I left the house. It was gray and cold but the weather report said it would pick up.

No one was in the lab at school. Lots of people said they would show up for early printing but no one did till like 10am. Which was good. It gave me time to get my dibsies in on the table space (which I needed a lot of). And I got printing! And it went smoothly! I got better at pulling and knowing which ink to do twice before lifting the screen. After the halfway mark I just stopped loosing pages. I was hoping to have 50 but I ended up with around 70! Palmarin was around, Rainbow said hi, Matt said hi, Sandra worked on her project, Anthony was working, Christy (Kristy?) printed his thing that he is collaborating with the teacher who looks like a healthy Nick Cave. I shared my riddles and worked. At my top speed I got a series of prints done in about an hour. It helped when I could set them on the table behind me instead of the one across the room.

I only took breaks when my screens were drying during the transition point. I removed the emulsion as I cleaned the ink and reapplied all the emulsion and exposed the transfers at around the same time. Just easier to not have to do the running around of those steps. I had another burrito for lunch. Not the delicious one I had yesterday (it was a limited time offer).

Most of it went off without a hitch. Sure I did have to toss some due to being illegible but in general, they look really great. And when they are all piled together, ohhh that makes me happy. The last screens to print was the cover and that I had to apply the emulsion on another screen because the screen it was on had an odd mesh count. Something was weird. But redoing it only set me back 30 minutes.

A group of people were printing shirts when I was doing the cover so I had to set them on the table far away from me. So that final part took a little long. Still, I got it done and it looks GREAT! I gave one away to the people printing and one to, oh I forget her name but she is nice. People are so delighted when they give you art, specially if they know HOW MUCH WORK IT TAKES! DID I MENTION THE PAIN I'M IN? Argh I hurt all over. Shoulders, knees, feet, just ow. Something panged in both my hands when I was doing the last pulls. Like a sprain. I just had to keep going. I can feel the Advil now. I also used the foot massager that Rubie and Nate gave me for Christmas. Sooo good.

I got out of there at 9pm. 13 hours. The ride home was nice because it was actually working my legs and reliving the stress put into my feet. It was nice when I got past the point of feeling my callouses. I have about four. Damn squeegee.

2/8

Long day. Again. But I'm on track and feeling good.

We got a lot of group theory thrown at us during math but no more tips on solving. I can do the top layer no problem. Just need to learn the next two. Yup yup.

There was a class in the silk screen lab so I couldn't print but I could remove the emulsion, reapply it, and reexpose the screens without getting in the way too much. Karen has loaned me TWO SCREENS! So now I can comfortably print. Finished painting my digital tools project in class so I don't have that to worry about at all. I used a self made brush to do the cars so I could get the lineart in really quick.

Then it was straight to printing! Oh I had this awesome burrito for lunch. It had edamame, sweet corn, black beans, and brown rice and some sort of cheese. It was super good. I think I'll order another one tomorrow during my insane printing run. But back to printing today. I cut the edition in half to 100 prints at the first color. I got two pages done and they are coming up great. Sure there is some loss due to crappy printing but I'm getting better and knowing how to print and what causes errors. So from 100 it might be at around 80-90 now. I think the loss will slow down and I may end up with about 50 comics, which is fine. It is a lot of labor but its mostly labor back to back. My feet hurt but I wasn't wearing the best shoes. There were lots of print people in and out and chatting. Devin was there, Karen was working on her letterpress, Anthony Roberto was busy being a genius, Rainbow sewed. It was a nice crew. Printing is nice because you are never alone. I took up a lot of room with my prints but people were nice about it (mainly because I was around and never left the room for more than five minutes. Lots of printers will leave stuff about for hours with no note). Helped Devin out a little bit. Poor fella had to reapply emulsion a bunch of times for this one book project.

I got out of there at about 10:50. I'd say about three and a half to four hours was spent printing. There was about 15 devoted to setup and the rest was all cleaning. I'm removing the emulsion from the screens as I wash the ink off so when I'm ready for the last 4 transfers, I can do them all pretty much at the same time. So there will be a break while I'm waiting for all of it to dry to expose and then dry to print.

Now to sleep for tomorrow will make or break me.

Each edition should go faster as I will be printing less and less. It will be a matter of minutes difference but still, a little faster is always better.

Cars Go Vroom (editorial illustration)

Digital Editorial Illustration for a supposed article about cheap cars. Accessibility vs the environment. Or something.

Digital. 1500x1200 pixels.

stress levels rising, must keep calm exterior

Got up super early to get a jump on things only to find out that Art Media opens at 9. Arrived right as they opened and bought two 100 sheet pads of sturdier newsprint to print on. It was a big trouble to curl them to transport them to school, but I did it! It took a while to get everything set up and I ended up finishing the layouts during the comic meeting. I'm missing the cover and the backside still but I need to get on with the printing.

We had artist presentations today. You would think 9 kids doing 10-15 minute presentations would result in taking up only the first section of class with maybe an hour after. No! It took till bloody 3! I quickly did the emulsion on my screens and oiled up the transfers to sit while lunch went on. I screwed up one of the emulsions and had to redo it. I spent the rest of class folding paper to the specific broadsheet layout.

Good thing: the transfer worked perfectly.
Bad thing: I ran into issues printing. Could be the ink (I have never worked with opaque before, only the more transparent process ink). Could be that it dried a little (which I think it did during the first time). Could be that it is too close to the side. Either way, I'm letting my screens sit over night and I am going to come back at it tomorrow! I have way too much printing and too little time. I'm sort of getting into panic mode. I had a hard time focusing in yoga and sleeping doesn't come that easy. Part of me hopes to get to a point where its like "OK, there is no way I can finish this by Stumptown" but right now I'm still stuck in the, "well if I work every free minute, I can get it done." I would hate to get to the point where I only had one or two more pages to complete.

Comeback I didn't get to use today: You can't be that busy as you made time to hang with Mr. Grumpy.

Gabe and Luna

Luna and Gabe.

crunch time

It's late and I'm getting up early so I'll make this quick.

Math! Rubik's Cubes! We spent the first hour looking at videos and talking about the history and then we learned how to solve one side. I can get one side really quick but I can't get some of the edges in the right order and need to work on that. Still, yay! Except now every time I leave my cube for a second, someone rearranges it and I have to do it over. Mel, I'm talking about you.

Worked on layouts and lettering during lunch. Going pretty fast actually. I'm behind on the cover but I need to just start with the printing. I don't want to fudge the cover. Nothing much happened at Student Council. The copier went on the fritz and did like 11 copies when I only wanted 1. Serves me right for stealing paper from it earlier.

Joe grilled us about not having the neatest or most complete of thumbnails. Worked on value and color studies. Went to Trader Joe's after school to ge bread and cheese so that Gabe could make me a Monte Cristo. It was delicious.

Worked on what I need to work on but I still am a little behind. None of my cover sketches worked out. Up late and have to get up early. BOO!!

schedule righted

Fixed my schedule! Well the school fixed their scheduling issues and I got it all resolved and the base schedule I have for Fall 2009 is awesome. First semester of my JUNIOR YEAR!! WHOO!! I will probably add another class so that I'll get more of my money's worth. Anyway, it goes like this: Monday: Narrative Image with Daniela Molnar. Wednesday: History of Printmaking with Morgan Walker (had him for the figure last semester) followed by The History of Laughter: From the Ancients to the Postmodern with Barry Sanders. Thursday: Illustration Studio II: Visual Vocabulary with Martin French. All of them are 300 level. Only three days a week scheduled up. Awesometacular.

So Joe had to pull out of teaching us for the rest of the semester. Bummer. Family things. He will still be there for Digital though. Some of my classmates were not so bummed out. Daniela has stepped in to teach us for the rest of the semester. First we did the critique of our pieces (finally). A lot of people really stepped up to the plate and delivered some amazing things. I think the divide between AWESOME and uhh, okay was more clear. Robin produced this beautiful work with so many textures and compositional brilliances. I'll be sad when she goes away from us Illustrators. Mine was mostly favorable with little nitpicks. I think it helped that I had spent the whole day inking before I started in on it.

Did the registration thing and tracked down my Madeline for lunch in the library as usual.

In class we dug up a photo that we liked and did line art and then those were photocopied. We reduced the colors of the image down to 12 and colored it in, and then we switched color swatches and colored it in with those. We were supposed to do it a third time but I couldn't finish fast enough. It looked neat but I didn't have my supplies (the teacher supplied some). It was a busy day. Someone commented that it was the most productive we had ever been in class. I think some people would have had more productive days if they bothered to stick around till 5pm.

I took it easy. I mapped out what I need to get done in the next couple days (a lot).

Watched Terminator 2 for what I think was the first time tonight with Katie and Gabe(Gabe made Ragout). What a lovely action movie!

I miss the sound of rain on a roof

Guess what I got done before 6:00 pm today? That's right. MY COMIC! I inked that sucked in record time. And it looks. It looks like a comic. I layed it out in a few hours and I think once it is all compiled, it will look amazing. Now I just need to sort out the text, the cover, the back flap, and the screens. I think I can manage two transfers on one screen. I'll just tape over one while I print the other. That way it will save me time on applying the emulsion. I will just have to clean and dry and tape, which will take considerably less time. And while one drys, I can print the other layer. It is all coming together! I just need to find paper big enough.

Got that done, and my Illustration homework. Which only took an hour and a half once I got reference photos. Zachary and Joe were right, the more detailed the thumbnail the easier the final result is to make. I had a very productive day.

I spilled ink on my leg but I was too lazy to clean it off. As the day wore on, I began to think that an ink spot or drip would make an awesome tattoo.

It rained ferociously for a little while. Things washed down the hill and people ran. It was really beautiful. Mom called me and we talked about the poem where our, "Goddamn the rain, Goddamn!" quote came from. Actually it doesn't have that line at all. Here is the poem, for your Spring Weather having enjoyment:

Ancient Music

Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.

Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.

Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,
So 'gainst the winter's balm.

Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.

Ezra Pound