printmaking

Studio Tour: BT Livermore at Magnetic North

October 1, 2012

photo taken by BT Livermore

In an effort to stay close to my roots as an artist working in the real world, I want to begin a new feature here on the Cotton & Flax blog: studio tours! While I was visiting Portland, Oregon a few weeks ago, my friend BT Livermore gave me a tour of his new communal studio space in NE Portland, Magnetic North.

BT Livermore is a talented printmaker, sign painter, and illustrator, who I met back in my beard-obsessed post-college days (BT co-owns a moustache wax company called Man’s Face Stuff along with Evan Dumas). He recently moved into a new studio space, called Magnetic North, that also serves as a studio space for artists Mary Kate McDevitt, Fred DiMeglio, KB Sawyer, and Lacey Van Nortwick.

Magnetic North is a great space for these creatives, they have space to tackle a wide range of projects. In addition to having their own desk area, there is space to screenprint, a tabletop letterpress complete with type, a small laboratory corner for creating moustache wax, and lots of table space to spread out and draw or paint.

Printmakers require ink, certainly.

photo taken by BT Livermore

Another of BT’s hand painted signs. And below, a large hand painted sign in progress.

There is a small retail space up front, which sells original art, prints, and even moustache wax.

And outside, you’ll see more hand painted signage inviting you into the shop. Mary Kate McDevitt and Fred DiMeglio created the beautiful window, made using windows reclaimed from a 100+ year old house in Portland. It lets in lots of light, and lends charm to a space already loaded with personality.

Check out the Magnetic North Blog, or visit BT Livermore’s Website, Blog, or Twitter.

Print of the Week – Linocut by Elizabeth Catlett

September 28, 2012

Elizabeth Catlett, while more widely known for her sculptures, made a number of beautiful prints during her lifetime. This linocut, titled, “Sharecropper,” was made in 1952, and is a beautiful example of the detail and gorgeous textures that can be achieved in this medium. I greatly admire Ms. Catlett’s ability to capture subtle, but vital details in this portrait, which help to bring a sort of heroic meaning behind the image. You may want to read more about Elizabeth Catlett on Printeresting, or read more about “Sharecropper” on the LACMA blog.

Snail Mail Saturday – DIY Hand Stamped Envelopes

September 22, 2012

Remember those stamps I made for the Hand Stamped Gift Wrap DIY? Well, I just got them out again to stamp some patterns on some snail mail that I’ll be sending out this week. I even used a little of the leftover gift wrap to write the letter! I printed the envelopes using a standard stamp pad, grouping the stamps in new ways to create variation. Just make sure to let the ink dry before handling the envelopes (to avoid inky fingerprints).

If you take good care of your linoleum stamps, they can last for years. Just keep them out of the sun and away from dry, dusty areas, and they should keep their shape quite nicely. You can reuse them over and over for all sorts of projects, on both paper and fabric. That’s right, you can stamp on fabric, too! I’ll be posting a DIY on that topic soon, so stay tuned.

Print of the Week – Sir Terry Frost

September 21, 2012

I love the bold black and red forms of this print by Sir Terry Frost, entitled, “Red and Black Solid.”

Print It Yourself – My favorite DIY printing books

September 18, 2012

I meet so many creative people, both in person at sales and events, and online on Etsy and Pinterest. Lots of people ask me about how I learned to print on fabric, and the truth is, I’m almost entirely self-taught! I learned traditional printmaking techniques (relief printing, intaglio, lithography, etc.) in college, but I didn’t learn to print onto fabric until after graduation.

I learned fabric printing, both silkscreen printing and relief printing with hand carved blocks, by reading lots of books and by experimenting. The best way to learn to print on textiles is by trying it out for yourself, and you don’t need a fancy studio to get started. These books will help you learn the basics, and guide you through some basic and intermediate project that you can give as gifts, or keep to decorate your home.

These books are invaluable parts of my library, and I return to them often. Some of them focus completely on printing on fabric, but a few are great introductions to printmaking in general, and cover the basics of printing on fabric as well.

Print Liberation / Mastering the Art of Fabric Printing and Design / Dyeing and Screen-Printing on Textiles / Little Owl’s Little Prints / Lotta Prints / Printing By Hand / The Printmaking Bible / A Field Guide to Fabric Design

This book from Christine Schmidt of Yellow Owl Workshop is a great way to introduce young ones to printing – the projects included in her book are absolutely adorable, and will keep you entertained all afternoon.

Lena Cowin’s new book Made By Hand also has some fun printing projects. I didn’t include it in the roundup because it’s not strictly about printing or textile design, but it’s worth picking up!

Do you know of a textile printing book that I shouldn’t miss? Let me know on Twitter or Instagram!

Want to learn more about printmaking? Check out my screenprinting class for CreativeLive, and learn to print your own designs!

How does silkscreen printing work?

September 17, 2012

Update: I now offer an online class to learn to screenprint your own designs! Sign up for my screenprinting class, and transform your artwork into texiles, prints, posters, and more.

When I sell my textile work for Cotton & Flax in person, I’m often asked, “How do you print your fabrics?” The answer I usually give is that the fabrics are silkscreen printed, which I do by hand in my home studio. I talked about the process behind creating hand printed textiles last week, but I didn’t go into much detail about the silkscreen printing (or “screenprinting”) process. I know not everyone is familiar with how silkscreen printing works, so I made this little video that shows a snippet of the printing process.

This wasn’t intended to be a tutorial, so I skip over all the setup steps (like covering the silkscreen in emulsion and exposing my imagery onto the screen), as well as the parts that come after the printing (like heat setting the ink). The video just cuts to the chase, and you can see how I use a squeegee to hand print each piece of fabric through the silkscreen mesh template, making a piece of patterned fabric that will later be sewn into a pillow cover.

In the video, I’m printing one of my favorite patterns, the DNA squiggles, which will be sewn into small pillows. I’m hoping to expand my studio soon to print larger pieces of fabric (and maybe begin to sell yardage of my hand printed fabric), but for now, I’ll continue to print small pieces. If you’d like to learn more about silkscreen printing, there are a ton of great resources both online and in print for learning how to screen print at home. I’ve featured my top 6 DIY Printing books here, in case you’re curious!