Printmaking: "The Journey"

This semester in Printmaking I decided to dive deeper into Reductive Screen Printing, and I might have bitten off more than I could chew. The piece is called "The Journey."


For those of you unfamiliar with reductive screen print, it is a process using a silk screen. To get a good idea of how this process works check out this video.


First you decide what your image is going to be. I choose to do a girl carrying an angel doll walking through the forest. Originally the piece had a lamp post but that was eventually taken out for fear of being redundant, and simply because I ran out of time on this piece.






Once I have a good layout of how I want my final piece to look I begin with the back ground. Using screen filler I blocked off the area of my screen where I wanted the paper to show. For my first run, it was the border of the page and a small pool of light were the moon will be hitting the ground. I then printed a light blue color. The areas where I painted the screen filler remained white and the rest of the image was light blue. I then decided where I wanted the light blue to stay and ran a slightly darker blue. With each layer the moon light spreads across the page giving me my foundation.







Next, I worked on the back ground trees. I began by blocking off an outline of the trees and bushes that made up the back ground and printed a dark green. I then printed a medium green and light green on top of that giving the trees depth. This process continued until my forest scene came to life. I think blanked the forest in snow before adding my girl to the image.











Twenty-seven colors later I have a piece. While I layered each section one on top of the other, most artist would have created this image all from one reduction. This is where I think my piece got away from me. With the method I used, I could have gone on and on forever layering one thing after another on the page. It was overwhelming and I didn't know when to stop. Eventually, I just had to stop because I ran out of time and the piece was due.










I guess the lesson from this one is just plan what you are going to do before you do it, expecially with a process this complex. I was able to get an okay print out of the hours and hours of work I put into it but I could have made it much easier on myself by planning out each step and not trying  something I had only done a few times before.









Now it's back to the drawing board. Hopefully, my next piece will be better executed, and more my style.