ink – Rae Nudson

screen printed cards

You know when you’re really frustrated or super excited and you just hit your keyboard in a rush of emotion? That’s what inspired this screen printed notecard. Also my love of punctuation and the way people swear in comics, of course.

Since I took a low-tech screen printing class at the Brooklyn Brainery I’ve been interested in experimenting with screen printing and learning more about it. After I got my very own screen for Christmas, it became a lot easier. My first project was a print of Elvis that is now hanging on my wall. This project is on a smaller scale but I was able to make more prints because I had almost 20 notecards to work with.

I started by sketching a pattern on freezer paper and then cutting out my stencil.

Then I set up my screen printing area so I would be ready to make all the prints at once. I love freezer paper, you guys. I put it down on my table and clean up was so easy–I just threw away the paper! I am also using it to make stencils and it is working great for me so far. Freezer paper stencils, however, are probably not going to last after one use, so if you want to keep your stencil I’d recommend something a little sturdier (like this overhead transparency).

I made a few test prints.

And then I printed away! Here they are drying on my table.

I love these. They are a quick but personal way to send a note to friend (just in time for Valentine’s Day). Plus I think the design is simple and cute. I can’t wait to make more prints!

On a related crafty note, over the weekend I set a goal to accomplish one embroidery quote each week. This weekend I’ll be out of town, so I’ll post more not this Sunday but next. At least that’s the plan, anyway.

odd thomas talks to elvis; i screen print him

I’m reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz and loving it. Odd is a pretty normal guy–he works as a line cook, hangs out with his girlfriend, and can speak to the dead. Not that they talk back. But they do show him things, and he helps them when he can. Odd tries to use this gift to help the dead and the living, and in the first novel of the series he attempt to stop a huge tragedy from occurring in his town. I don’t know if he succeeds–I haven’t finished the book yet. But I’m having a great time getting there.

Odd is ghost friends with Elvis, who seems to make his own rules in death, as he did in life. Normally Odd’s interactions with spirits are people who died in his town. He doesn’t know of any ghost travelers–except Elvis, who has taken a liking to Pico Mundo even though there’s no evidence he visited when he was alive. He hangs out often, sometimes dancing, sometimes watching, and sometimes crying, but never singing (ghosts don’t talk, or sing, I suppose).

I’d like to think that Elvis and Odd are sort of friends, at least the kind of friends that spirits who don’t speak and living people who eat and breathe and yell can be. So I made a tribute to Elvis, and to Odd.

I recently took a class on screen printing and really enjoyed it. It’s fun, and once you start making prints it’s pretty addicting. (But be careful, otherwise you’ll have 30 copies of Elvis and nothing to do with them.) I still have an empty space on my wall, and I’ve been longing to fill it with another handmade artwork. And my family gave me a screen printing kit for Christmas, with ink and a screen and everything! The stars aligned.

I started with the idea of an image of Elvis singing and dancing. I found some images I liked, but I wasn’t sure how to get those images onto my larger canvas that would fill up the empty space on my wall. I’m ok at drawing, but drawing his entire body, hips swiveling, was a little advanced for my first at-home project and the first time I was using my new tools. So I simplified my idea and started sketching.

Once I had some elements I liked, I drew them on a larger scale on freezer paper, which is what I made my stencil from. I cut out the shapes, and then attached my stencil to my screen.

And then started! The first attempt was the worst.

But that’s probably normal, right? The next few came out great! I like the imperfections and I love the color. These will go great on my wall.

family art project

I went home for the holidays, along with my siblings, their significant others, and their kids. My dad told us this week that we had a few projects to do before we could leave town. It would be like summer camp, he said. But for Christmas.

Christmas Camp started with family breakfasts where we learned to make southern biscuits and a book club meeting (more on that later). But one of the coolest things we did all week was a water color blob inspired art project.

We started with a wall filled with paintings of blobs of color. My dad made them for us, he said, so that we could use ink to draw on the painting whatever image we saw in the blobs–kind of like spotting images in clouds. He had some examples.

We each had to complete one drawing and put it back on the wall before the week ended. Well, we got a little carried away. One was just not enough. Soon we ran out of blobs and starting making more.

We used water colors, added some salt for texture, or used a straw to blow the paint for streaks of color–anything was fair game to get colors twisted and turned in juuuust the right way.

We had so much fun. It was so interesting to see what our family came up with, and everyone from grandkids to grandparents all participated. Here are some of my favorites. Don’t forget to sign your masterpiece!