Studio Series: Graphic Screen prints

Graphic screen print © Karen Thiessen, 2016

My printmaking class finished a few weeks ago and now I have a nice pile of prints to collage with. When I sorted the pile, I realized that I also have a substantial number of duds (or works-in-progress) to screen print over. 

Sunny graphic screen print © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Most of my prints are an accretion of patterns. I've learned that some prints go through an ugly process and eventually evolve to something that I am excited to collage with. In the above screen print I can see at least four layers of patterns and I'm pretty sure that they are printed over a colour copy of a collage or quilt. Some days I think that I'd like to make two or three screen registered prints like some of my classmates, but my accretion technique still gives me a lot of energy and satisfaction and unlike conventional approaches, these prints really function as monoprints because no two prints are the same.

Studio Series: Work In Progress

WIP collage 3'X4' © Karen Thiessen, 2016

This is week two of three weeks of mini-studio retreats. The above 3' X 4' unfinished collage is the largest that I have ever made. I am using papers that I have screen printed as well as found papers. I need to live with it for a while to see where it wants to go. It needs taming, but how I do not yet know.

WIP collage 3'X4' © Karen Thiessen, 2016

Once it is finished, I will hang it on the wall where it is propped. The hall is a busy, narrow space so I collaged on 1/4" plywood and will either hang it with metal mirror clips or I'll screw it to the wall with brass screws.

Studio Series: Screenprint fragments

Screen print edges collage © Karen Thiessen, 2015

When I screen print small or fragile papers, I tape them to a larger piece of bristol and layers of prints accumulate along the edges. Here's a collage of those edges. I've been very busy!

Studio Series: work in progress

Mennonite material culture series in progress © Karen Thiessen, 2015

While I've been moving my Poetic Memory series forward (well over 200 tags are complete!), another series has been almost making itself. Yup, Mennonite elves toil away in the studio when I'm not looking. Well, it seems that way. 

Each body of work that I make has its own rhythm and personality. Some are neat and tidy and emerge on schedule, like a small miracle. One was stubborn and had its own sense of time (the Shadow series). I started playing with making a Mennonite series about fifteen years ago. It wasn't ready. While I was working long hours for my 2013 solo show Unit(y), naturally the Menno series started elbowing its way into my awareness. It's a sneaky beast. 

Above is a random selection of 41 of the Mennonite material culture tags that I've made so far. They aren't optimally arranged or installed. The series needs a better title and I need to triple the amount of work before I have a sense of what it wants to be and where it wants to go. With this series it seems that as long as I'm working on something else, it gets made. 

Summer rhythms, etc.

You may have noticed that I've been a bit quiet here. November marks the fifth anniversary of this blog and this year I decided to slow down my summer blogging and actually take some time off. It's my first "break" in nearly five years. I'll write the occasional post, but not three days per week as is my custom.

On another note, I'm learning a new photo editing program (a basic program that came with my scanner) because my Adobe Creative Suite locked me out after nine years of use. It's a legal copy that I paid for, but Adobe wants me to keep spending money. It's caused me rethink how I make my work. Once I find a tool and learn how to use it well, I don't necessarily want to keep having to relearn computer programs. It slows me down and cuts into my efficiency and happiness. Also, I've read that each new iteration of Photoshop and Illustrator is not necessarily better and many folks are unhappy with being forced to use the Creative Cloud. New is not better. Such is life.

My hubby is taking a chunk of time off this summer and we are taming our wild garden. Last week I built 90% of a stone wall and it looks fantastic. Garden work with my hubby means less studio time and solitude, which means less focus. One of my artist friends once commented on summer rhythms as "seasons of work" and this is comforting. Canadian summers are generally only two months long, so I'll mark them with picnics, gardening, sky gazing, and visits on the back patio with friends. In mid-September I'll be back to a regular studio and blogging practice. I haven't yet decided what this blog will look like after the five year mark. Time will tell.

Studio Series: Screen prints 3

Screen print over collage © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Last week I printed a Post Office Grille and Rooster Comb pattern over a variety of papers. Over the years I have amassed piles of colour copies of collages and patterns that I was unable to use in a satisfying way. Many of the collages were from my learning years, and although colourful, weren't good. Above is one of those bad collages vastly improved with the Post Office Grille and Rooster Comb pattern duo. I can't wait to cut it up and collage with it.

 

Screen print over Tangents quilt collage © Karen Thiessen, 2014

If you look closely, you may recognize the base print as being the Tangents quilt header image for my blog.

Screen print over old magazine photo © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Screen printing over old magazine photos continues to be interesting.

Screen prints over collage © Karen Thiessen, 2014

As I wrote in my first screen print post, I'm printing over collages and other screen prints. I really like the interaction of the Waves and Post Office Grille patterns. The base paper for the above print is a truly bad collage.

Screen print over Bars collage © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Post Office Grille pattern over a colour copy of a Bars collage. This week I've been collaging tags with my screen printed papers and using the prints is helping me to assess how a print will work or not work. I now have a pile of prints that I will screen print over with new patterns. I can't wait.

Studio Series: Screen prints 2

Screen print 4 © Karen Thiessen, 2014

In my screen print class I've been testing patterns that I designed while learning Adobe Illustrator. Since there are so many, I've been exposing my screens with two patterns. By the end of ten weeks, I'll have tested eight patterns. I'm only printing papers for the purposes of collage, so I don't need large prints of each pattern. Above is a Zig Zag and Dots duo on a security-patterned envelope.

Screen print 5 © Karen Thiessen, 2014

The same Dots pattern on one of my acrylic ink/Chartpak marker Lent drawings.

Screen print 3 © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Here's a less successful print of a Spiral/Waves duo on a colour copy of a textile that I pieced together from fragments of old kimonos.

I bought a pack of 100 acetates and have been playing with making marks with a variety of materials on them. I'm curious to see how they will translate to prints on paper. 

Studio Series: Composition in Red 4

Composition in Red 4 © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Composition in Red 4 is a continuation of my work with modules and tags. Half of the tags have had some "textile interference," either through stitching with needle and thread or mark-making with an unthreaded sewing machine. Six of the tags incorporate patterns that I've designed, printed onto paper, and then collaged onto the tags. When I created this piece earlier this year, I could see that I was moving the work forward. Several months have passed and I now see that there is room for me to push the work even further. This summer I've prepared several hundred surfaces to collage on, I am ready to begin and see where the work guides me.

Week 81: Adobe Illustrator

Radio Grille Mandala pattern 1 © Karen Thiessen, 2014

For twenty years I've played with a radio grille that was once a speaker in a very large radio cabinet. The radio was gone long before I received the cabinet,  but the speaker with its grille was still intact. I had the speaker removed and now the cabinet houses books. Before our ancient speaker and receiver went up in smoke (literally) in early January 2007, the cabinet contained a cool 1970s Pioneer receiver inherited from an aunt, and a CD player bought with the income tax return in our first year of marriage. While I was a textiles student at Sheridan college, I silk-screened a reduced version of the radio grille onto various fabrics. Here's the radio grille motif in a quilt.

Since I've been learning Illustrator, I decided to revisit the motif and see how it looks in repeat. Last week's pattern is derived from a section of the radio grille put into repeat, and for this week's pattern, I simply rotated the grilles around a centre axis, thus creating mandalas. I like how the circles look like the doilies that my Oma and great-Omas crocheted.

Adobe Illustrator

Radio Grille pattern © Karen Thiessen 2014

A good and proper cold slowed me down this week, so my Illustrator practice was shelved in favour of naps. Although I didn't practice with hands at the keyboard, I dreamed about it a lot and I'm curious to see if I am able to replicate the patterns that I created in my dreams.

Week 80: Adobe Illustrator

Wallander wheel pattern 2 © Karen Thiessen 2014

I decided to revisit some old less-than-successful patterns to see if I could rework them in a pleasing way. I've adapted the Wallander wheel pattern that I first created in June 2012. The black-and-white version is an improvement on the garish pattern in the image below.

Wallander wheel pattern © Karen Thiessen 2012

Week 79: Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop

Farmhouse with Birch repeat pattern © Karen Thiessen 2014

I spent my first eight years living in this ramshackle rented house. The driveway was a long walk for short legs to the main road, but the trek was well worth the effort. At the road was a ditch where my brother and I would collect tadpoles in glass peanut butter jars (and ruin our shoes in the mud, much to our mom's dismay). The yard surrounding the house was large. In one corner stood an overgrown common lilac bush into which I could wriggle to its core and hide, a natural fortress. My brother would climb up into the pear tree and pretend that it was a combine. I would sit under the elevated Fina oil tank and eat the ants. The fence along the driveway was electric (to keep the neighbours' animals contained) and for fun my brother and I would dare each other to touch it. We didn't need amusement parks or playgrounds – we created our own excitement ... and survived it.

Week 78: Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop!

Dotty hexbridge on Tea Stain Pattern © Karen Thiessen,  2014

Well, I finally did it– I created a pattern using both Illustrator and Photoshop. The Dotty Hexbridge pattern is old, but the tea stain pattern using triangles is brand new. As I combined the two patterns, made independently of each other, I realized that I can't just slap two random patterns together and make them work. This new discovery is a work in progress. If I stick with this newfound knowledge, I'm curious to see how my work will evolve over the course of a year. I had to relearn (by bumbling and stumbling of course) how to create triangular selections in Photoshop, and eventually I made it work. The trick was to draw an equilateral triangle using the polygon tool and then draw over it using the Polygonal Lasso tool. I had never used the lasso tool in this way and I still haven't figured out what the polygon tool does, other than provide a template for the Polygonal Lasso tool. Progress!!

Week 77: Adobe Illustrator

Ukrainian crosses © Karen Thiessen, 2014

Another upside to spending January in front of a computer is that I am back to learning Adobe Illustrator again after a hiatus of several months. I'm curious to see how my AI skills will develop this year. It's been a while since I used a manual and now it's time to go back to learning new skills from a book and then playing with those skills.

Week 76: Adobe Illustrator

Ukrainian butterfly © Karen Thiessen 2014

We are in the midst of a deep freeze here in Canada. For a few days it was so cold that the squirrels stayed tucked in their dreys. For those who are missing the warmer weather, here's a cheery pattern to brighten your day. As for me, this is my favourite time of the year. Christmas is over, the light is bright, crisp, and clear, and the tree skeletons are revealed. It's all so ordinary and beautiful. 

Week 75: Adobe Illustrator

Chortitza oak leaves © Karen Thiessen, 2013

I've finally started to play with my "leaves of significance" a bit more. This Chortitza oak leaf is very expressive. Over the summer I collected some here and there and my kind uncle mailed me a bouquet from his tree, so I have plenty to work with. It's clear that until I started this project (a.k.a.healthy obsession), I had never looked at leaves this closely. What I've learned from the leaves that I've collected, is that each one is slightly different. Until now, I assumed that all the leaves on a particular tree were pretty much the same. Thank goodness I was wrong because the world has become an even more fascinating place. Each of my Chortitza oak leaves is different in size, shape and surface markings. At the moment, I'm mostly interested how the shapes vary.

Normally I look at the leaves with the stems facing down. By chance I flipped this leaf and it immediately made me think of Japanese calligraphy. Do you see what I mean?

Week 74: Adobe Illustrator

Birch 1 © Karen Thiessen 2013

Birch 1 is for my late brother. On his birthday I picked a few leaves from the weeping birch that shades his grave. I love the negative spaces. This week I played with my "leaves of significance" collection in Adobe Illustrator. There'll be more leaf patterns to come in the next few weeks. 

I confess that I've been rather lazy in my AI practice. Although I've continued to practice, it hasn't been rigorous enough to advance my skills. Right now I'm in a curiosity rut: I'm creating designs to suit my current passions instead of moving through the book.

Visual Research

Crosses studio wall © Karen Thiessen 2013

Studio Series: Composition in White

Composition in White © Karen Thiessen, 2013

Now that my Unit(y) show is over, I have time to develop more Composition pieces without the threat of an impending deadline. Well, maybe not. I created Composition in White specifically for a province-wide juried show of fine craft. In the process of making it, I raked the yard, swept the porch, cleared my office desk. While the collaged tags were drying, I tended my natural dye vats. Basically, I was aware/afraid that my newest work would not be understood by the broader fine craft community. It's different from my previous work and it excites me to no end. As I was making C in W, I started tags for future Composition pieces that will incorporate natural dyeing of both textiles and paper. When I submitted the piece, I felt empowered and energized to create more modular work, regardless of its acceptance into the show.

The good news is that Composition in White was accepted into Carnegie Craft 2013 and that it won an award!

Week 73: Adobe Illustrator

Oak leaves 2 © Karen Thiessen, 2013

How did November sneak up on us so quickly? Wasn't it August just the other day? I continue to play with oak leaves and I like the irregular negative spaces and the colours in this pattern. Fall is definitely in the air and the smells remind me of camping with my late grandparents.

Remember that Daylight Savings Time ends Sunday November 3 at 2 a.m. here in North America. Turn your clocks back one hour before you go to bed on Saturday night.