Present the First.

As I may or may not have mentioned in a previous post, I decided to make shirts and bags for most of my friends this year in celebration of the holidays and my new printing skills. At the end of it all, I had printed 4 shirts and 2 bags, which is more than I did for an entire quarter in my GID 32 class. I'm pretty surprised at these results, especially if you consider that I went from concept to product in about a week, a week and a half at most. What took the longest was the linocut carving - I think one particular lino took about three or four hours to cut.

So now we begin the journey through the presents. I didn't record any of the flubs and mistakes I made along the way, but believe you me they exist.

The first present: a screen-printed T-shirt. Printing on black is the bane of my existence. But I did it and I'd do it again, but probably with more success and less frustration.


I drew an ice cream cone on tracing paper for my template.

Cute, isn't it? I think so. Simple, as well. Simplicity is what I like best in my art.


A shot of the screen after I had coated it with screen filler.

Screen filler, as I may have mentioned a few times, is not my favorite product. I can see the utility in using it if you want really loose, graphic images without a lot of detail. But it can be rather... frustrating to use. There may be cursing involved.


Proof that I can, in fact, pull a screen.

The end product wasn't completely professional looking, but I stand by my product. And the friend who received this particular present seemed happy enough with it, so mission success.