valeriepica.com » Techniques

poladroid.

valeriepica — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:02:01 +0000

I know this is already halfway round the internet by now, but I’m a little late on the bandwagon with this one- Poladroid. It’s a compact application for mac or pc that mimics the saturated, out of focus look of polaroid film. Of course, yes you could get the same effect by using a few Photoshop curves and a polaroid frame but it’s just a bit more fun this way.

The website has the program for free download with support, and there’s a few flickr groups showcasing the work. Let me know what you make with it!

Tags: poladroid, photography, applications

printmaking+pattern.

valeriepica — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 18:28:02 +0000

Time to show some of what I’ve been up to over the long and quiet month of December! The above is a linoprint, which works quite nicely on fabric, but not so well on the textured card. (Underneath is my incredibly messy desk!)

Another repeat pattern- this time I didn’t use the Julia Rothman tutorial, I used a rather snappy Photoshop filter called Offset, which basically does the work of chopping your paper in half for you. The method is described here (though this wasn’t the tutorial I used).

And I also did a bit of silkscreening using a contact paper stencil- I took photos along the way as well, so a tutorial is in the works.

linear monotype tutorial.

valeriepica — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:01:41 +0000

Turns out the monoprints I posted aren’t really monoprints, they’re more accurately called linear monotypes, and might not be as common as I thought. Either that or it’s such a well know technique that no one bothers to talk about it! Regardless, I thought I’d post a mini how to about it, obviously I’m not an expert, this is just the way I do things.

You will need:

1. block printing ink. (can be waterbased or oil based. Oil is messier, water dries quicker)
2. something in which to mix your ink.
3. a brayer.
4. a flat, non porous surface. Glass or acrylic work well, or even a kitchen surface, so long as you clean up quickly.
5. a mixing tool- preferably an old brush.
6. a stack of nice paper.
7. a stack of nasty paper. (unused printouts or newspaper!)

1. I’m not very organised, so when I’m doing something like this (in my case with the speedy-drying waterbased ink) I like to set out my space so I can just do things and not have to stress. So set up your tools!

2. Then mix your ink. I was going for a neutral purple colour.

I don’t have an image for the next few steps as I was trying to work quickly. But it’s pretty simple!

3. Pour a little ink onto your inking surface (glass/acrylic/kitchen work surface). Use your brayer to roll out an even coat. It should be just thick enough to cover the surface, and not so much that it’s too shiny.
4. Place your scrap paper over the ink- press down lightly over the whole inky area. (This step just cleans up your image- not necessary.)
5. Then start drawing! You can use ball point pen if you like to see what your doing, or you can do it blind and just use blunt instruments such as: the wrong end of a paintbrush, a coffee stirring stick, a finger, whatever you like!
6. Peel off your drawing when your done.
7. Repeat, just use the brayer each time to make sure your ink is even.
8. To clean up just use water and soap for water-based paint, and you can use vegetable oil of white spirits to clean oil based paint. However, then you shouldn’t't really pour this liquid down the drain, which is why I use water-based.

Some of my results:

Variations!

The method described above is linear monotyping (according to this handy website), however another, perhaps more common, method is to ink a shape directly onto the glass, and then use a clean brayer to transfer the ink onto the paper. You can also ink the entire glass, use fabric or a sponge to wipe off certain areas, and produce a reverse image. The former method is shown below.

There’s a few good groups on flickr for monoprinting, here and here. If you use my tutorial, I’d love to see what you come up with, so comment away!

monoprinting.

valeriepica — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:39:18 +0000

Just been messing around with some printing techniques lately. These are a few monoprinting images, a technique which is about the simplest method you can get. I quite like the messy look of these, you can get a smoother effect by blotting first, but I prefer not to. The image above is the pen drawing I did in order to get the topmost image. It’s funny how just using a different technique can give a totally different look to a simple drawing.

eraser carving tutorial.

valeriepica — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:49:47 +0000

Rubber stamps are, as a rule, foul. They’re twee and sentimental, a low-fi clipart. But you can make your own rubber stamps, an easy way to reproduce your own designs. I made a simple design to show you how.

First cut an ordinary eraser to size.
The firmer, white ones seem to work best and the pink, crumbly ones are terrible!
Draw your image directly onto the eraser, or trace it and scribble on the back to transfer the pencil to the eraser. Remember that the image will be reversed!

Then start carving around your image. I’m using a V shaped gouge in the picture shown- it’s a wood carving tool really, but it does the job. You can also use a scalpel, but remember- don’t cut directly downwards, if you cut on a slope the stamp will be much more stable.

Carve away, and then ink it up and test it. Mine were pretty messy at this stage, but it’s useful to do as it highlights on the rubber where the peaks are.
For ink, you can use a regular stamp pad, which come in billions of colours, or you can simply use a bottle of ink and a brush, or for the really low-fi, a waterbased marker pen will do the job.

When I had the stamp how I liked it I cut all around the edges, to make sure I’d gotten rid of the bumpy bit. This is of course optional.

The stamps can be a little fiddly to hold, so I cut a piece of thick card to mount it on, and pressed the stamp onto the back for reference.

The finished stamp.
PVA glue seems to hold it in place fairly well.

I used my stamp to create a pattern, which I scanned in and edited in Photoshop to make a repeating patter with a handmade feel.

You can use these for all sorts of things though; stamp them on packing labels to make stickers, business cards, wrapping paper, make an entire zine with them, create your own movable type set, or use them as a stepping stone for linocutting.

I first had a go at this medium a year ago to spread the word about buy nothing day, but pretty much forgot until a week ago when I found the beautiful stamps of craftpudding, an etsy seller who constructs amazing stamps using her own designs, and very faithfully rendered fonts.

craftpudding flickr.
craftpudding etsy.

Juliao Sarmento: Racial Makeup.

valeriepica — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:19:36 +0000

Continuing in the bookbinding theme, today’s images are some details I took of an impeccably bound book by Juliao Sarmento. I was struggling with this binding style- I pretty much disregarded the tips about using Japanese paper in Kojiro Ikegami’s book, which meant the book I’d been attempting were stiff and crunchy. The japanese papers, which have a high rag content, are incredibly thin yet strong, which means in a bookbinding style like this it’s possible to actually open the book fully without damaging it.

Regardless, this book is an artwork, a documentary, and an example in a medium.

Juliao Sarmento

Juliao Sarmento: Racial Makeup.

Bookbinding Workshop with Richard Roberts.

valeriepica — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:49:36 +0000

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