Screen Print Tiles + Evaluation

3 Final Tiles

After my foil tiles failed, i opted to go back to the screen printed tiles which seemed to work quite well. They wouldn't be too great in a real bathroom environment, as the print would just come off! But for now, the colour has stuck and created quite a nice effect. The tile in the middle was done before i used my screen for the foil technique. After i used my screen for the glue, i think this may have taken away a bit of the detail of my designs because the prints were not as clear as the first ones i did. I am quite dissapointed that neither processes worked exactly how i had hoped, i really wanted the foil tiles to work because it i think the black tiles and foil could have looked really interesting. However, i am fairly happy that i do have these select few tiles I'm happy with. The middle has definitely worked best, in the other two tiles there is a bit of a lack of detail, especially with the Jelly Fish design.

Foil Tiles

I bought 4 black tiles from a tile shop, and 10 white ones. My aim with the black ones was the use the foiling technique and give my creatures a dark, deep sea kind of effect by using the shiny and brightly coloured foils. I was really excited about this process and was sure that (if it worked) my tiles would look good. Then it all went wrong!

This is one of the designs with just the glue screen printed on to it, and then left to dry for 20 minutes.

This is another tile and design with the foil over it, ready to put in to the heat press.

This was the first tile i did, it didn't work very well as i think i used too much glue and it showed up on the tile where i had cut the foil into separate strips.

This is another tile, the foil didn't stick to the design properly and i was left with patches of glue.

Here are the 4 tiles all together. The bottom right one cracked in the heat press and the foil didn't stick to it properly. I had the same problem with the top left tile.

If i had more time i would have probably come up with a better plan, someone suggested ironing the foil on to the tiles to prevent them cracking in the heat, so that is a possibility to experiment with.

Silk Screen FAIL!

This was the result of my first screen exposure. It didn't work at all and half of the designs peeled off as i was washing it.

Developmental Drawings

This is just the face of a scary fish with lots of teeth! i like it and want to develop it further. I like the style of the eyes, they look quite empty and there doesn't feel as though there's very much friendliness in them!

Developmental Drawings

This drawing is just a quick one done in biro, I tried to re-create the image below. I think it just looks like a wizards hat inside a bubble...with fins. But there we go, another little drawing.

Developmental Drawings

Some fishy eyes!

Developmental Drawings

I used a thicker fine liner for this drawing and i have decided i definitely like using the thinner fine liners for these type of drawings. Still, its good to experiment with different types of pens to create different line qualities. I like this creature, i think he needs a bit of work though, i don't like him as much as the last two drawings.

Developmental Drawings

Another drawing, this ones a bit more jelly fish like. I was influenced by a picture i found on the Internet of a jelly fish that looked like it had another jelly fish inside it. I added some light up neon tentacles to this drawing (if it had colour, it would be a bit more obvious). I think that in terms of print, some of these drawings could be quite nice when layered with different bright colours. And using foil possibly on black could create a nice effect.

Developmental Drawings

This is the first drawing i have attempted, just using a fine liner and flicking through my sketchbook, looking at images of different creatures and piecing together bits of their bodies! I really like the eyes of this creature, it's quite scary. Usually my monstery drawings are always quite friendly looking, but this ones doesn't look very happy.

Mysterious Under Water Creatures!

A few images for some inspiration...

( I did have a lot more images than this but they clogged up my blog so i have picked the best ones!)

Ideas...

I did a mind map and came up with quite a few interesting ideas, but after a recent illustration project which included looking at extinct animals and in particular, squids and octopuses - i have decided that my 'Darkness' theme will be deep sea creatures. Because technically, they are always in the dark! and i think there is something very fascinating about a whole world of deep sea oceans we know very little about. They say that scientists know more about the solar system than our own deep waters. I was always interested in creatures of the water from a very young age. I had an obsession with whales and dolphins, my whole room was painted to look like the sea and i had stickers, posters, stencils, bed covers, cushions, toys - everything! - with a sea theme.

So with this in mind, combined with my interest in ugly alien like creatures and the nostalgia of my childhood bedroom with watery themed interiors - i think this will be a very exciting and interesting path to explore.

In terms of an interior artifact to print on to, I'm not absolutely sure on that one. I've had a few ideas including a shower curtain, part of a broken sink or bath tub, a toilet seat, a lamp shade and bathroom tiles. I would quite like to print on to something that's meant for the bathroom to keep with the water theme, but i guess its not essential. Here is just a page with couple of notes from my sketchbook...

The Art of Print - "Prints of Darkness"

The Art of Print

"Prints of Darkness"

Notes:

• "Prints of Darkness" as a theme for second stage
• Print on to something interior, for home, office, shop etc.. FOR EXAMPLE: Cushion, table, tiles, rug, curtains...
• Use atleast two of the print processes from the last part of the project

Proposed Design Schedule:

Week 24 - Stage 2 Briefing - Developmental research
Week 25 - Student explorations, developmental research
Week 26 - Reading Week / Subject Research:
Continued student explorations developmental research
Week 27 - Product Realisation
Week 28 - Product Realisation: Deadline 9^th March 3:00pm
Week 29 - Assessment Presentations
Week 30 - Assessment

Evaluation

I enjoyed trying out the different print techniques (even though i had done many of them before last year) and it was interesting to see what could be done with flock and foil. I would definitely like to use some of these methods in future work to reproduce some other images and maybe experiment with texture and layering colours. I have become quite interested in the blown up image and some of the qualities it can produce from something like a very small drawing, which i could also apply to some of these print practices such as the silk screen print.
I found dry point a very interesting process, i quite like 'messy' ways of creating images and things that look quite raw and not too clean cut. So this process was really effective for those reasons. I didn't get around to using the laser cutter due to time, but i will try using it in the future.

All in all, this print process module has been very interesting and helpful in terms of developing my own skills when print making. I now feel confident enough to go in to the print room and be able to do each process on my own, without any help (well, maybe a little bit of help...).

My Lino Prints...

My design on the lino

First print, the block of colour didn't come out very solid but i quite like this effect.

Second print, again, colour not spread evenly over the image.

Third print, i used a lot more ink this time and mixed two colours together. Some of the ink had started to seep in to the cut grooves, so parts of the teeth, leg and arm did not come out in full detail.


This process was probably my least favourite for a few reasons. For the type of image i wanted to reproduce, it was hard to cut in to the lino the detail i wanted, so i ended up having to simplify it. Then when printing, it was hard to get an outcome i was happy with. However, i have seen other peoples work who have used this process and i think for some particular types of design it can work really effectively, it just wasn't for me!

My Screen Prints...

Screen Print 1

Screen Print 2

Screen Print 3

Screen Print 4

Screen Print 5

Screen Print 6

Screen Print 7

Screen Print 8 - White on black fabric

Screen Print 9 - White on black fabric 2

Screen Print 10 - Blue/ green on dark blue card

Screen Print 11 - Blue on green card

Screen Print 12 - Foil on red card

Foil on card

Foil after being used

Flock print

Negative of used flock print

The whole silk screen process has probably given me the best outcomes. I really liked using Flock and Foil and would like to use it again in the future (even if it is a bit costly). I think that this technique can re-produce some really nice images, especially when experimenting with colour and materials. My attempt at printing on to fabric didn't work very well, but i think that was because the fabric i used was just a scrap piece, i don't know what material it was exactly, but it had a very elasticated feel to it. Combined with a little too much binder with not enough white mixed in to it, it came out quite seepy. However, the flock printed on to fabric worked brilliantly, only missing a few of the monsters hairy bits out!