guest teaching in Lidköping

Christmas feeling in Lidköping

work in progress

presentation

I'm home from Lidköping, but unfortunately I brought a cold back with me. So snotty and feverish right now. Sleeping might cure it, don't you think?

Numbers

20 - the anniversary Grafik i Väst (a printmaker's association) is celebrating. Here the catalogue to celebrate the occasion.

5 - the page where you will find my screenprint "POW!"

104 - how many other artists you will find in the catalogue. Check it out here 1 - where you will find me in the on-line catalogue (the link above) 910 - the number of this post .... 0 - minutes is actually the time I should spend blogging tonight (now I'm on borrowed time)

HDK summer course: Ola Åstrand

Artist Ola Åstrand gave a lecture at the HDK summer course in screenprinting today. Ola works a lot with screenprint in big format in his art. He prints in 70 x 100 cm and then glues the pieces together to form bigger pictures directly on the wall. (like many street artists working with posters) The display, the installation, in his exhibitions are of great importance. I found it interesting that he based the lecture on his blog where he had documented exhibition installations as well as his art.

After the lecture we visited Ola's retrospective exhibition at Galleri Thomassen - the exhibition was actually over, but as it was still there we got to see it. Ola was the perfect lecturer for the course.

Testing and the Tempest

The initial short and intense screenprinting period (3 days) of the summer course is over; test prints with smaller frames on different materials and getting the hang of printing big format on vacuum table and with a "printing arm" (not sure about the English word for this). My students completed the first assignment together: an 18 meters long print based on the first scene of Shakespeare's The Tempest (in an edition of two, with variations).

SCENE I. On a ship at sea: a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. Enter a Master and a Boatswain Master Boatswain! Boatswain Here, master: what cheer? Master Good, speak to the mariners: fall to't, yarely, or we run ourselves aground: bestir, bestir.

A confused noise within: 'Mercy on us!'-- 'We split, we split!'--'Farewell, my wife and children!'-- 'Farewell, brother!'--'We split, we split, we split!'

demanding to teach sometimes

I managed to get a 15 minutes lunch break today. Tomorrow we'll have to finish up the first assignment (I'll show you) and I think I might get even less break then.  I'm too tired now to think of anything more to write.

still learning

this might just interest screen printing buffs: I recently learned that you can fold a triangular squeegee support out of cardboard, attach it with scotch - and then get less messy while printing (before I just leaned the squeegee on the border of the frame). For the HDK (design school) summer course starting on Friday I've been gathering some examples of screenprinting in less ordinary ways: Luke O'Sullivan screenprints on wood  Various and Gould also use screenprint - but for making their "collage-poster-street art"

prepared for teaching

print showing the colour possibilities when working in transparent layers (though we won't work with cmyk)

transparent green in layers printed on soft transparent plastic. Would be great for working with shadows

I printed on woven glass fabric - it gives the image a pixelated feeling. Bubble wrap is also great for pixelating.

Now I've finished preparing most materials for the screenprinting course I'll teach for HDK  (the design school). I think it's important to not just talk about different ways of working, but also to be able to show examples (... and not just show my normal way of working!) I'm looking forward to seeing what my students will come up with!

printing a summer meadow

In two weeks the big format screenprinting course will start. The focus is installation in space/scenografi rather than editions/prints on paper to be framed. I'm making some material tests and prepare some prints to show different techniques. Today I printed a summer meadow ... which is quite far from what my own art is about. (No, my art is not about happiness, even though there might be laughter.) 

first I cut some simple stencils

the stencils stick to the backside of the screenprinting frame thanks to the capillary attraction. I then painted flowers and such on the open mesh, filled the rest with green screenprinting ink - and printed.

Voilà!

Here I repeated the print (with some variation to make it more interesting)

another print, detail: layer on layer and with slightly different colours.(I think it would look nice as a textile print. On a summer dress?)

colouring page (print)

More experimenting. I masked out some parts I wanted to keep white, then painted directly in the open screenprinting frame, filled with transparent paste - and printed. Today I wasn't really concentrating properly though (could have made better prints) - I was at the same time working with my commission upstairs in the metal workshop. Some extra details needed to be fixed which couldn't wait.

Yesterday's printing results

First steps. I'll add more layers. (the light orange is the second layer. I'm making them all different)

a good laugh

A break from the aluminium (the screenprinting frame is made of aluminium though): I printed the painterly image I prepared the other week (made directly on architect drawing film and then exposed onto the screenprinting frame without any middle step in the computer). My idea here is to work in several transparent painterly layers to get a result closer to my paintings ... probably. Anyway, it's about experimenting and developing my screenprinting into something new. I'm very excited about this too...

adding some colours

Today's results weren't bad either.  the top print: even better than expected (you can't tell it's been printed with 3 frames).  the colour test: not perfect but I know some ways to solve it. And I kind of like it.

more direct ways when screenprinting

Normally when screenprinting I first make a drawing, then I take a photo, then I rework it in Photoshop, then I print it on transparent film on a laser printer (often on architect drawing film which is kind of milky) - and then I transfer the image onto the screenprinting frame. But I've always felt that I wanted to work in a more direct way - take more risks, get happy accidents, be more in touch with the material feeling...

Now I've prepared my originals by painting directly onto the drawing film (to be exposed) with ink - and to erase simply cut away what needed to be erased

The drawing is based on this sketch for my public commission and is made on three separate sheets

this way I can print the image using three screenprinting frames and thus getting the possibility to work bigger

I'll print the third and last part of the drawing tomorrow. But it is not finished then - this is just the beginning; the experimenting bit will be with colour. To make some tests I chose to work with two different kind of images directly onto the drawing film. The other one is more painterly, and in expression closer to my watercolours.This week I'm just using them to make tests and based on what results I get tomorrow, I'll prepare new images next week when I'll be in the guest studio at the Watercolour Museum

giving workshops

the course room at KKV (artist run collective workshops) Göteborg Today I started the 2,5 days "screenprinting on paper workshop" for master students from HDK (the school of design and crafts) at KKV. I've been giving a lot of short workshops the last years and it's always interesting to see the different types of participants. Mostly I give screenprinting workshops at art schools or to professional artists/designers. The most attentive participants and best listeners are actually very often the most experienced and established - or the total beginners. These two types believe they can learn from me. Then we have the opposite: the participants who think they already master the technique - because they've done it a bit before - and won't listen and don't need any demonstrations and very often fuck up. (there are of course also those who have a clue and know they still might learn new ways of doing things). Will be interesting to see what types I'm having from HDK. (I won't tell you though, because you never know who reads this blog) Every summer HDK offers an independent course program (which means not just for their own students) and this summer I will teach big format screenprinting. We're still in the planning phase, but by the 1st of April it should all be official - and I'll let you in on the details. Debu Barve writes about art on his blog.

prints in the post

These are the screen prints I made for the project and travelling exhibition Of Fishes and Birds. As you can see I decided to be a bit more light-hearted than I normally am in my own art (commissioned art being something different).

The top one is to be in the harmonica book which is the main object in this collaboration. The other two prints are to be exhibited alongside with the book (together with the other artists' prints, of course!) in those exhibition venues where we will have more space. My prints are right now in the post and should arrive to Kitty Kilian in the Netherlands by Wednesday (according to the post office). The first exhibition is to be in August.

so 80's

the colours, the pose, the way the girl wears her hat

....it wasn't intentionally

yesterday

"You will get plenty of time for resting once you're dead"

That's one of the sayings from my father's part of the family from Småland. Småland is a part of Sweden where people are known to be hard working ... and careful with money. (Ingvar Kamprad, who is the man behind IKEA, is from Småland)

Yesterday I worked on my Fishes and Birds prints all day and then I started teaching my screen printing course at 17:00. When I left KKV at 21:00 there was that special smell of evening in spring - and I felt very tired and alive. The course goes on all weekend; I'll see if I manage to get any photos to post here of me in action teaching. One of my students tried to take photos today, but she said I just got all blurry because I didn't stay still!

In the left bottom corner you can see part of the sketch I made for the print

The first part of the bird has been printed