Tote Bag Screen Printing "Bike Lane"

New screenprint featuring my latest design titled "bike lane". I'm kinda obsessed with tote bags right now...especially since Heather bought me a super nice one for Valentines Day made of waxed canvas from TM 1985.  Love, love that thing...we call it the "Mote", or man-tote. Masculine and sensitive at the same time!

We use tote bags for the grocery store and hauling crap back and forth, so there's like 10 of them in each of our cars. Heather has a few nice printed ones she brought back from Paris, and always gets compliments at the store. 

So it begins, my first in a line of screenprinted tote bags. This bike lane design fits the green living, bicycle commuting kind of life style that is so prevalent in our community. These blank totes were purchased from a big-box art store and are 100% cotton. I don't know of their origin, so that bothers me a bit. They'll do for now until I find a local source or seamstress to get them from.

Can't wait to do a photoshoot with them filled up with groceries in a bike lane. I've already got the spot picked out on a bridge near my wife's art studio. Check 'em out soon on my Etsy shop!

I sometimes build things...

Here's a pic of my upcycled rustic-chic table made from a fork-of-a-tree and pallet wood. I think it's really unique, but has been hard to sell probably because of that. It's been hanging out in an upcycled retail store for many months, so I'm going to have to pick it up and do something else with it. Unless we win an HGTV Dream Cabin sweepstakes, this will live in the basement (aka "chair graveyard") for the time being.

The Workhorse: Pentax K-1000 camera

A new linocut block print featuring "the workhorse" of cameras, the Pentax K-1000. I have two of them, and used them every day in art school. There's just something magically grainy about a perfect photo taken from an old SLR camera that is unmatched by any of today's high-tec digitals.

Case in point....

New screen print in the studio, "Bike Lane"

Instragram pic of my new screen print design, titled "Bike Lane". This digital illustration is derived from a photograph of a common street label indicating a commuter bike lane. It's rough and pixelated around the edges, conveying the look of paint on pavement. This is going to look great on a tee-shirt in yellow or white ink.

Coffee In Bed featured in The Makery

Got my very first blog mention by a trio-sister team at The Makery. A great new website/blog featuring North Carolina artists. They have a kickstarter campaign going on as well. Love their idea and logo and wish them well with this venture. I'll be following. Check them out... http://makeitnc.wordpress.com

Down-n-dirty Screen Printing on T-shirts

I recently created a new t-shirt design for my ceramist friend Joey Sheehan, owner of Melting Mountain Pottery in Asheville, NC. I had the screen made, and we did some printing last night in the "man-cave-studio" to test it out. Joey learned the process and gets to keep the screen and print as much as he wants...tees, gift bags, aprons, etc. With a lot of test prints and trial and error, we finally got some nice prints. Once you get the feel of the squeegee pressure and the amount of ink coverage, good prints come fairly easy. We're letting these dry overnight, setting the ink with a hot iron and then a smaller front-print design can be screened.

 

Here's a great basic video (Click on image below to watch) on screen printing in your kitchen on a flat table..no fancy equipment necessary. This guy used a mylar stencil on the bottom of the screen, but the concept of inking and printing is the same. 

Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop

Here's a link to learn a bit about printmaking and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.

Part of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York, NY is a 4,000 sq. ft. lithography, intaglio, relief, and digital printmaking workspace. The studio offers membership opportunities, work exchange programs and contract services. They produce fine art prints for individual artists, galleries, foundations, and institutions as well as their own published works available through the shop. Additionally RBPMW offers ongoing classes and workshops. 

http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/02/27/ten-minute-talk-phil-sanders-on-printmaking