Ink, Print, Moo, Repeat: CreativeBug's Screen Printing for Beginners

Four or five years ago Kevin and I bought a Speedball screen printing kit to experiment with. Kevin made a few shirts, including these shirts for Team Battery Brewing, but I pretty much just helped because I found the whole process kind of intimidating... a lot of setup and A LOT of clean up.

But as I was browsing CreativeBug's classes I saw this class for beginners, taught by Hilary Williams, that used tracing paper stencils as opposed to blocking fluid. So I figured that it was more my speed. I have to admit though, it still felt like a lot of work. Man, this makes me sound super lazy...

Boo tracing paper!

Basically, you cut out a stencil in tracing paper, tape it to the back of the screen and pull your prints. But, I learned pretty quickly that the tracing paper was a no go. It wouldn't lay flat and the edges bled a lot (see left). So I upgraded to Contact paper, which was a significant improvement, but I still had to practice quite a bit to get the right amount of ink and the right technique.

My biggest struggle was positioning the paper... Our screen is kind of stained from previous projects so it was basically impossible to see the CLEAR Contact paper stencil in order to "register" the paper... which ultimately led to some guesswork/slightly off-centered noses. I didn't take any pictures of the actual printing process because I can't multi-task. The other thing that made this difficult for me was just the waiting around for my screen to dry in between attempts. I think people who do this a lot probably have multiple screens and a lot more patience than me.

Yay Contact paper!

Overall though, I think Hilary gave some awesome tips about screen printing in general. She did a great job of balancing simple instructions without making it too basic/boring if that makes sense. It was easy, but still engaging. I watched the videos ahead of time and then basically remembered the steps as I went so there was no pausing, backing up, pausing, replaying, to figure out what I was supposed to do. This is HUGE in my book.

And even though my noses were kind of crooked, I was pretty pleased with the results. I think this cow will look very cute in a certain cow/farm themed room we're working on ;o) And even though I had a couple of times (grrr tracing paper) where I was ready to throw in the towel, I'm glad I stuck it out. TBD on how soon I'll dive into it again, but definitely a fun first try. Christmas cards maybe?

Definitely another great CreativeBug class! What next? Embroidery perhaps?

Washing With Color: CreativeBug's Watercolor Classes

Happy summer people! I just wrapped up CreativeBug's Beginner and Intermediate Watercolor classes taught by artist Yao Cheng. I loved her rapid-fire, just-go-with-it and move on style. The pieces came together quickly, so that even if something didn't turn out great... it was easy to move on to the next thing. Here's a quick run down and a few samples of some of the work I did during the class.

In the beginning class, Yao starts with color theory, basic brush strokes and a few abstracts. In the second half she turns her focus to leaves, trees and wreaths. The abstracts were fun, but I was really impressed how she conveyed the ease of the natural subjects. I had no idea I could paint things like this! Room for improvement but I love them!

I took many art classes as a kid from an amazing artist in Jacksonville, Jennie Szaltis. She taught me to love a number of mediums including batik, but I have to say I really hated watercolor (which is so sad because really, she is a wonderful teacher/artist). I just felt like I sucked at it. It wasn't my thing. This class really challenged that assumption.

The intermediate class moved into florals, layering and landscapes. One thing that is cool about watercolor is that sometimes things look really different when they dry. The peony on the left looked miserable when I finished, but I actually kind of love how it dried. Magic!

Here's a bouquet. Again, I liked it much more once it dried. I was using some older brushes and paints so sometimes things got a little fuzzy.

This was my attempt at the all-over floral pattern. Need to work on my spacing and layout but I felt like there was a lot of potential.

Here was a layering piece. My colors got a little weird (again, old paints maybe?) but it was a cool technique.

Ok, last of all, my landscape... which brings me to the one criticism of the class. To no fault of Yao's, sometimes they've edited the video so that it sort of fast forwards through more detailed sections. I know they don't want the videos to be too long, but with Yao's quick style I found myself having to pause and back up A LOT in order to keep up as I was painting along. Food for thought.

Overall, highly recommend these two classes. I really gained a new appreciation for watercolor and I'm looking forward to playing more and practicing. (See more class reviews here and here).

Drawing & Illustration for Dummies

Continuing with my spate of recent online classes, I recently finished watching Heather Ross' Drawing & Illustration Basics on Creative Bug. In the next week or so I'm going to be posting a REALLY BIG round-up of all the online classes I've taken, but I wanted to share some of my attempts from Heather's class in particular.

Heather really focuses on drawing everyday objects so we started out with some little things little clothespins and push pins.

Next we moved on to some more complex sketches of things like flowers.

Up to this point in the class, I basically was just drawing whatever she drew, but then I diverted and started sketching some things from our backyard (I mean, it IS spring and EVERYTHING is blooming!)

In the second part of the class she focused on filling in the sketches with gouache, which is a type of opaque watercolor paint that is hard to spell. I was immediately very intimidated, because the bulk of my forays in to painting are decidedly abstract, but I soldiered on at her encouragement that "everyone can draw/paint."

SO I gave it my best effort and was mildly impressed/happy with the result! Lots of room or improvement though.

Finally, she talked a lot about making conversational artwork... again, not something I do naturally... but I loved the little painting she taught us to do of a ladybug hiding under a mushroom. Check out #cbugsketchbook on Instagram to see like 15 of my classmates versions of this... pretty freaking adorable in my opinion.

I think this class was really interesting and pushed me to attempt drawing more things that I usually immediately am like... "nope... can't draw flowers, sorry."

Unrelated to what was taught in the class, I also decided to try my hand at some brush lettering which I really loved and hope to do more of in the future. Sort of an easier (for me) way to get a calligraphic style without the frustration of bending metal nibs (curse my heavy hands!).

Stay tuned for another post coming up in which I will share my deep thoughts and general fangirl-ness from a bunch of the online classes I've taken. If you've been thinking about learning some new stuff... this post will be for you!

Design, Carve, Print: Block Printing Class Day 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I signed up for Jen Hewett's Design, Carve, Print class. I've been admiring Jen's handiwork for several years. I was psyched to sign up for another weekend, online design class after how much I loved Pattern Camp.

This class is decidedly more hands on vs. techy, which was refreshing. I love digital design but some times it's great to get your hands messy (in my case EXTREMELY messy). First let's admire my craft/laundry/sewing room when it was still clean-ish:

We started out with some sketching (Kevin also hopped in on some of the action; Bailey decided it was a good time/place to nap).

I took a bunch of old sketches that I thought would be good and was inspired by this pic I found on Pinterest of envelope security lines (I know, weird).

After sketching it was time to transfer and carve. Here's what my block looked like when I transferred the sketches over:

And here was my first round of printing after I had everything carved. The little trees and stars were blocks I carved a while back for other projects but it was good to put them to use.

I think there's a pretty clear distinction between Kevin and my designs. Whereas my designs are generally abstract, Kevin created some awesome peas and running shoe prints (in line with two of his most favorite hobbies). Looking forward to tomorrow's class!