Just though I’d show a sneak review of some books I’ve been working on. These are for the University of Southampton’s art and craft show, which will be held on Sunday, 28th November. Come and see me!
I’ve also got some sets of badges which I’ll be showing you very soon- I had lots of fun designing and making the packaging, so I hope you’ll like them!

I love this ‘red riding hood’ fabric! I bought it from cottonblue’s shop on Etsy and couldn’t bear to part with it for a long long time. Luckily, I summoned up my courage and transformed it into two sweet little pamphlet-bound sketchbooks. I’ll show the complete books soon!

Just so you know, once I’ve recovered from the show in November (my very first craft show!), I’ll be listing the remaining books on Etsy, so even if you can’t make it to Southampton, you can still buy from me.

So I’ve been badgering(!) away, and making different badges. The ones above originally looked like this before being popped in the oven. I’m not quite sure if I fully like these- I don’t know anyone that would actually want to wear a portrait on their lapel so perhaps they don’t make much sense… but they were my attempt at a sort of modern victorian cameo.

Below- the pin backs are held in place with a little piece of felt for strength (and you know, cos it’s pretty).

And of course, the ever present DIY badges- now smaller, and shot on prettier fabric! I’m trying to make more of an effort to take nicer product photos- you know, as practice for when I actually sell stuff. Any comments/hints?

PS. If anyone would like, I’ll post them a portrait badge via snail mail. Just comment below with an email and let me know which one you want. Obviously, only the first two people will get one.

nb. the purple haired lady badge has gone to a lovely lady in Arizona, so only comment if you’d like the peach haired portrait!

diy., originally uploaded by valeriepica.com.

more badgemaking!

diy or die., originally uploaded by valeriepica.com.

Making badges with shrinky dinks…

I recently had an incredibly useful session in the print room with my lecturer and the print technician, who both showed me a lot about lino printing. We used the University’s lovely but neglected Albion press, of which there are two in Europe, both situated in our University. I was immediately told not to use the water based ink I’d been leaning towards, but instead the oil based, which is a very different texture. Padding was another thing I knew nothing of but is very important in getting the correct density of ink in the image. There seems to be two main variables- the ink and pressure, so it should be pretty straightforward to work out what is lacking.

Using the press shows the flaws of a lino more than hand pulling, the pressure forces the paper in to the hollow on the lino and picks up all the recessed ink, so I think I’ll have to re cut most of the daisies image- the pigeons is ok in the main, as the large expanses of black, uncut lino mean the paper can be pushed so low. I love how the grain of the lino shows through, the texture is so much nicer than any flat black of modern printing.

I haven’t posted for quite a while, but I have been busy. My current university project is an anniversary hardack edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, with at least 14 chapter illustrations, some full page and some vignettes, so I’ve been quite busy reading the damn thing, researching and drawing for it. These are some of my initial drawings for the themes of the book. I wanted to make it quite new looking, but still referencing the media of the time.

I’m carving each illustation as a lino cut (i know it should be wood cut but I am a poor student!), and so I’m focusing on shapes and lines rather than colours. I think each image will be one colour, which means an added simplicity which seems to complicate the planning.

Tags: valeriepica, illustration, flower, floral, natural history

Silkscreening is a great way to get your designs onto paper, fabric, metal, wood- pretty much anything! The method doesn’t actually use silk- but it’s a fine mesh that’s stretched across a frame.  It allows you to use more complex design that a a stencil and spray paint or paint because the mesh allows you to attach islands that would otherwise be lost. You can block off areas of the screen in various ways- using a light sensitive fluid to create a very detailed image, or using viscous fluid to block out some parts of the mesh. The very simplest version of silkscreening uses a stencil, and this is the method I’m going to explain here.

This particular method uses contact paper (or sticky-back plastic as it’s known to schoolchildren and librarians alike), but you can also use a sheet of acetate, paper, card or stencil film. I’m going to go with contact paper for this one because although it’s not really re-usable (many prints can be made with the one stencil, but once you clean up and peel it off it’s pretty much gone) it does happen to make pretty clean images.

You will need:

Contact paper

Brown plastic-y parcel tape.

Exacto knife.

A screen with mesh.

A squeegee.

Screen printing ink- or acrylic paint with screen printing medium.

Good paper.

Scrap paper.

Again, this is a project to organise before any ink is poured because screens can and will clog if you leave them- and a wasted screen is a sad thing.

1. Cut your design. Cut through both layers of contact paper, and bear in mind that the negative space will be printed.

If you have any ‘islands’ (bits of contact paper that will stop ink touching the paper- unconnected to the main stencil by bridges) make sure you keep these, and if necessary label them.

2. Remove the paper backing from your contact paper and stick it to the flat (under) side of your screen. It’s easiest to do this by peeling one edge at a time, smoothing from the centre and sticking it bit by bit to the screen- try not to get any bubbles trapped!

3. When this is done you can turn the screen over so the recessed side is facing you. Use your brown tape to mask off all the other space in your screen, working from the edges towards the centre. This can get a bit screwed up if you don’t know the trick! Take off a length of tape roughly equal to the inner edge of the frame. Hold each end in a hand, and ‘fold’ it, whilst trying not to handle the sticky side too much. Place on the screen- pushing the central section down first and moving outwards.

After the four sides are done, the entirety of the screen not covered by the stencil also have to be covered.

4. Once your screen is nice and ink-proof, mix up your paint. The silk screen ink can be used pretty much out of the pot, but the acrylic medium needs to be mixed up- “from 0.5-1 part to 1 part colour” or in regular language: pretty much half and half. If you’re mixing up a colour, always add the medium first, then the lightest colour, and so on, in order to avoid mixing excess paint.

5. Paint mixed, screen taped, paper ready? Time to screen! Pour out about a tablespoon of your ink onto the top of your screen, then use your squeegee to draw it across your screen, in one movement with barely any downward pressure, and holding the squeegee at about a 45 degree angle. This should flood your screen with ink, and hopefully shouldn’t force the ink onto the surface below. Then place your good paper below and use a similar action in the opposite direction with a firm pressure to force out the ink onto the paper or fabric.

For every image you screen there should always be the two movements with the squeegee- the flood and the screen. The flood is a lighter movement, and merely causes the ink particles to be held in the fine mesh exposed by your image. The following action, should be firmer and should cause the ink to be transfered to the paper or fabric below. If you need to leave your screen for a minute or two- always flood it first to make sure the ink doesn’t dry quickly and block the mesh.

6. Dry your prints- the obligatory photo showing off my paper drying line.

7. Fini!

Well, it’s been a few years coming, but I finally have a website. I’ve made umpteen sites of the past five years, but not uploaded a thing, so I’m quite proud of actually getting round to it. It’s pretty css intensive, which was fun, and shouldn’t be too slow to load. 

Let me know what you think!

Well, the first post ought to be fairly momentous, and happily on the 16th of October we had one of the most useful lessons in the three years of an Illustration degree. We were given a day workshop with Richard Roberts, a London-based printmaker, illustrator, and graphic designer. We were shown the ins, outs and intricacies of binding a hard-back book, and by the end of the day thanks to the teaching standard we all had serviceable and attractive sketchbooks.

It’s great learning a new skill, especially one we can use in project work, and it’s clear that Richard enjoys what he does, making for a fantastic person to learn from! Richard Roberts is involved with the East London printmakers, a collective that offers various workshops, and also runs his own blog.

http://robertsprint.tumblr.com

http://www.eastlondonprintmakers.co.uk

I thought I’d post a few images of the lino cut image, to show how the ink and baren changes the image. This lino is made from the ink drawings in the previous post, if you care to see. The image above is the first pull, which was done with Schminke waterbased relief ink, and cartridge paper, rubbing the back of the paper with the base of a water bottle.

Oddly, I prefer the first image to the second, which used Speedball waterbased inks, thin, japanese paper, and a plastic baren from Intaglio Printmakers.