Day Sixty Five

Guess who’s tired? Me, that’s who.

After leaping from my bed at 9:30 (a certain coffee date with a certain grandmother having been forgotten) I proceeded to have the perfect, relaxing, whipped-cream-topped, mochalicious start to what I knew would be a long, long day. After that sentence, I feel the need to sidetrack briefly to apologize to every English teacher I’ve ever had for the “run-on sentence”. “So”, you ask, “what could you have possibly done today to warrant that kind of ‘run-on’ introduction?” Well, I’ll tell you...

In case you are unfamiliar with the lovely (and, at times, extremely frustrating) art of silkscreening, it goes a little something like this:

·         --Fine fabric is stretched over a wooden frame.

·        -- Light sensitive emulsion is applied to the “screen”.

·         --The emulsion is exposed to an image with UV light.

·         --The screen is washed, and the unexposed parts of the image are left, creating a kind of stencil.

·       --  Paint is applied to the screen, and squeezed through onto a surface (paper, t-shirt) to create a positive image.

Ah, the handy dandy information that comes from us lonely artists... Anyway, silkscreening is the medium that eight or nine hours of my day were devoted to. Having received a last-minute Valentine’s art order, I have spent the last few days shooting, editing, shopping, and, finally, printing. After repeating the above process exactly four times, every flat (and semi-flat) surface in my room was covered in prints and t-shirts.

As I fell onto the couch, I realized that not only had I not eaten in approximately 7 hours, I also had yet to complete the day’s work. Muttering to myself as I wiggled free of the cozy blankets I had wrapped up in, I decided I’d better get back to work before I lost consciousness.

Flipping through the dictionary, I decided to stop closer to the end. Fearing some obscure x, y, or z word, I stopped short of the true end of the dictionary. However, I still managed to happen upon a word I have yet to hear in an everyday conversation. (I plan to change this.)

un-der-brim The area on the underside of a hat’s brim.

I just love this word. With Valentine’s Day coming up (awkwardness and broken hearts, here we come), I wanted to illustrate a sweet, Valentines-y character. As I am not a hat-wearer myself, hats are not often present in my art. Thank you, “under brim”, for helping me to change that.

In keeping with the Valentine’s theme, I used light pinks and purples to color the character’s outfit. I like the touch of blue within all of that warmth; I think it keeps it from getting too blended together. For the hat, I liked the idea of one of those...I want to say “bucket hats” but I’m not sure what the proper term is for them...anyway, I wanted to have her wear an old-fashioned looking hat with a large, festive pin on the side. Although I ended up with more of a pink safari hat, I think the idea still comes across. I wanted to have the hat covering the majority of her face to keep you guessing.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post; thank you so much for reading.

Xx

-r