April 02 2015: Meeting in N1104

Club Business:

  • Finalize calendar for the rest of the year
  • Make sure everyone is able to do their duties
  • Talk about funding for screen print
  • Funding a bottle jack press: GoFundMe? CLT Barthold is improving the design Prof. Clarke found. This could really happen!

Here is another design for the bottle jack press:

The Work

  • We will look at the films CLT Barthold has made so far for screen printing.
  • Prof. Clarke will do a demo of pouchoir and let you all print as well.
    • Materials needed:
      • black/white image
      • exacto knife
      • stiff paper
      • ink, paint
      • ink applicators
      • cutting surfaces (do NOT use the desk tops)

Here is some great pouchoir monoprints on an etching press:

And all that great graffiti out there? If it is not free hand, it is stencil-based, and depending on how the stencil is used it could be pouchoir.

https://vimeo.com/81076

https://youtu.be/Qfbfn_n6iZc

This week: members learn to prep files for screen printing!

Here is a basic web-friendly logo for general use.

Printmaking Club meeting this week!

March 5, N1120  |  12:45 – 2:15pm

General Agenda (12:45-1:15):

Actually, some of this could be taken care of over email with the officers….

  • Signing up the rest of our members
  • Delineating duties
    • Writing constitution
    • Membership fee?
    • Filling out paperwork
    • Filling in the website (making officers admins)
    • Developing first field trip to GSS (poll members)

Printmaking Agenda  (1:15-2:15):

If you are a member:

  • Please bring a small drawing (say 6″ x 8″ at most). We will print these on paper. NO T-SHIRTS, please do not ask.
  • You need to use ink, dark pencil, or thick marker to create this drawing. The line quality needs to be opaque and at least fairly thick, like this drawing by David:

dbarthold_01

  • Very brief intro to all general methods of fine art printmaking
  • What is screen printing?
    • Equipment
    • Methods

  • Introducing the project: single color screenprints
    • Preparing drawings for making good photo stencil screens
    • Scanning images
    • Editing in Photoshop
    • Saving print quality files

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9c8sp9C7rw

David and I will take your files, create films, then bring in exposed screens and ink for you. You will need to supply your own paper when we print. Please note: if a lot of people sign up, we will have to figure out how to manage the project. 

Location and date for printing to be decided. 

Purpose and Vision

Here is a presentation I prepared for the meeting today!

Every student at City Tech should know we exist.

Events, demos, classes, shows… I want the whole community to know us as a force for good. Printmaking is about generosity, democracy, opportunity, and making something with what seems tone nothing.

Let’s make our own equipment, be scrappy, fight the good fight!

This club is about empowerment through personal visual communication. Printmaking taught me problem solving, gave me a history of protest, propaganda, and commerce to draw from as I made my art. I want to get the students excited about the potential involved in a few simple items, some ingenuity, and a lot of elbow grease. Let’s build presses, screens, tools! Let’s find all we need on the cheap, or from stuff being thrown away! I am tired of dependance upon others!

Let’s make some art.

Yes, we are in a design program, and we have plenty to learn in that arena in formal classes. The PMC will be a chance for pure expression through printmaking. We will hold critiques, shows, set up our own print exchanges with other schools in the area, all while learning our butts off! ART!

Let’s make all of our own visual resources: textures, etc.

What we make has to start showing up in their design. My art leeches into my every step, even now that I don’t get to make it very often. It’s in my blood. I want that for all City Tech students.

Let’s learn to love the evolution and flux of technology!

Printmaking has evolved in close step with every major revolution in communication, manufacturing, and communication. Let’s take it all apart, look at the basics, and understand how the tools change over time. Technology is not the tool, it is how we use and develop tools to achieve our intentions.

Let’s collaborate with process and learn to love chance.

Fine art printmaking is not so much about complete mastery of your materials as it is about dealing with what the materials and environment do to the ink and your idea. You have to always be aware of how the paper is behaving, how much moisture is in the air, or whether the plate is hot enough to soften the ground. When you are less aware, the process will teach to be more so, but most of the time, the mistakes are revelatory and exciting.

Printmaking Club Meeting Thursday, February 26!

ct_pmc_meet01_01Meeting Flyer

We are really trying to get the club ratified and on its way. I need help! As you can see, this email is coming out the day before the next meeting. I just had too much to get this out sooner.

Printmaking Club Meeting

Namm 1119 1:30-2:15pm,  Thursday, Feb 26

I know some of you cannot come, but reach out, facebook about it tweet, all that! Get friends to come! I am attaching the pdf and a jpg so you can send the info to others as needed.
Come and sign up for a position, help write the constitution, and design the first offsite field trip! I will have a short lecture on printmaking for you, so be sure to get there by 1:45.
We will also discuss what you want to start to do – let’s just pick a form of printmaking to learn, then we will make it happen. One way or another, we will get the printing going! I also have space for a show in the Gowanus area, so we can show anything we make or hold a print exchange. All up for discussion!

 

Valentine’s Day Action, 2015

We took 5 pound of raw potatoes, some kraft paper, a few really cheap paring knives and proceeded to have a couple hours of amazing fun.

All photos courtesy of Mandy Mei.

Valentines with the PMC

Oh snap! No class on Thursday, which means no Club Hours! Printmaking Club, join me in the atrium on Friday, Feb 13th at 2:15 – 4pm for an impromptu and unauthorized Valentine Card workshop. I will have potatoes, paper, and paint. Let’s get people excited about what we are starting! I will also have handouts on simple relief printing as every moment is a teaching moment. ‪#‎CityTechPrintmakingClub‬ ‪#‎CTPMC‬ ‪#‎PMCForevah‬

Here is the flyer as a PDF ct_pmc_valentine_05