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Blog 7

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  For the finished product of our project, the main thing we printed on was mugs. Screen printing can only print in one color, so it was too limiting for the designs that we had in mind. However, printing on mugs was probably one of the more flexible mediums. The process for printing on mugs is actually pretty simple, we print out our designs on a special type of paper, we tape that paper to the mug, so the ink is facing the ceramic, and then we heat press the entire mug so the ink transfers onto it. This sounds easy in theory, but it is actually very frustrating to get correct. One of the issues we encountered – and we did not expect this to be an issue, was the printing paper itself. When we printed some designs, some of them got cut off, so we had to throw out any designs that didn’t get fully printed. The other hard part is making sure that you tape the design onto the mug so it’s parallel and exactly where you want it to be. This can be difficult because you’re not even lookin...
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Blog 6

  One of the most crucial steps in screen printing is burning the screen itself. Without having a stencil to print on, you literally cannot print anything. However, this is one of the most finicky parts of the process, and a lot can get messed up and it takes time to get right.  The first step is to make sure that you have an empty screen with no designs on it. Empty screens are kept in a drawer, but you can always power wash the designs off of an existing screen to have a blank one. The most important step of this process is to make sure that after you take a screen out of the drawer, or after it dries from being power washed, that the screen is not exposed to any light whatsoever. This is important because if a blank screen is exposed to light, anywhere the light touches will burn the screen, creating a purple layer. However, this is also how we burn designs into the stencil itself. In our mentor’s studio, he has a machine that creates a vacuum seal around the screen and use...
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Blog 5 (prompt 7)

           I sort of touched on this in the previous blog post, but I didn't understand how much I would come to enjoy digital art. The most difficult part was honestly just learning the software, but after that, I became pretty comfortable drawing digitally. I think part of the reason that I liked traditional art so much before was because it wasn't difficult to figure out, and it wasn't something that I had to learn, it was mainly intuition. Digital art was intimidating to me for a very long time because I am not the best with technology, but I know that if I want to get into a design career for graphic or video game design, then I need to learn how to navigate digital spaces.     First of all, digital and traditional art are VERY different, and both have positive aspects to them. Digital art only requires that you have a device to draw on, and software to draw with, meanwhile traditional art requires physical materials that are an ong...
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Blog 4 (prompt 4)

    Whenever I start an art project, it always takes days before it actually takes off. I tend to start paintings and drawings, never finish them, and then move onto the next project. This was even more the case when I had no idea where to even begin with digital art. I would find myself doodling something, but then immediately scrapping it. I really surprised myself with the finished designs that I made because I never worked in digital art, and its already hard enough for me to come up with original ideas.     The first step of my process with concept, and this has always been the hardest part for me. My time in AP art made me absolutely dread this step, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found that the entire conceptual stage was just doodling things I thought were cute. Compared to AP art where I would spend days thinking of composition and meaning, all that I really did for this stage was doodle until I liked it.     The second step wa...
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