Our buddy Danimal , from Minneapolis , started making posters not long ago and is already in our top 5 favorite artists. It's kinda shocking how someone who has been printing such a short time is doing such innovative work. He really pushes the medium upwards and onwards.Overprints like Whoa!
Check out Some of his posters:
He just started an Art Blog that savy folks will wanna bookmark so they can buy his limited prints before they are all gone AND plays in Gay Beast , what I consider the most exciting midwestern band since the demise of Lake Of Dracula. They are prog infused noise rock that are CATCHY and SEXY and totally bypass any lame duck jazzbo or math rock noodling that bands fusing prog and no wave are often guilty of.
Curious about how we did a certain print or got a certain job , wanna know about touring as an artist or about setting up a co-op studio? Scared of printing with acrylic paint and want advice? Wondering about paying the bills as a disorganized D.I.Yer? Pens VS brushes , clip art VS illustration? Inspiration , self funding , working with art directors ? Working with bands and fitting art making into a lo-buget rn'r lifestyle? Wanna buy your first autopress or hire a intern? Wanna BE an intern?
ASK us. Send me an an EMAIL (info at seripop dot com) , subject line "I have a Question" and Yannick and I will share every shred of knowledge we have. If we don't know the answer , we'll ask one of our friends. Sounds good? I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Extreme close-up detail shot of that bus again. It was drawn pretty small with FW brand acrylics inks and on the close-up you can really see the weird ways the ink pooled on the paper.
How I wish this book had been around when I first started printing and struggled to get decent prints just using the pamphlet is came with my speedball kit . How I REALLY wish it had been around when Yannick and I started Seripop and struggled with Screening T shirts For Fun And Profit and various industrial screenprint manuals from the 60s. It would have saved us lots of money and heartache and had us form a more realistic outlook on living off of our printing skillz.
It's a book made specifically with the D.I.Yer in mind and spares you both on the Martha-esque mom-craft and on the "get rich in your garage screening shirts for the local little league team". Instead it's an easy to follow book that is perfect for both the person who will wanna make a poster or shirt every once in a while for shits and giggles as well as a comprehensive primer for the artist , crafter or would be entrepreneur who wants to be getting inky on a regular basis. It even has lists of places you can apply for grants and residencies (we'll be making use of that page for sure! ) as well as tips on how to sell your printed goods .
With a weekend , some space , some tools , about 200$ and this book you can have you own print studio. From now on , next time we get an email from someone asking us if we teach screenprinting , I'm telling them to buy this book.
Who should buy it: - First timers , novice and intermediate printers - Experienced printers needing to scale down (recent grad who no longer have access to their schools' facilities and wanna keep printing at home for example) - Anyone who teaches/trains people to screenprint . - Also useful to pretty much anyone who wants to have a homemade studio.
What I really like about the book: - Clear step by step instructions with photos and captions. - Guides you through printing on paper and fabric as well as on wood, vinyl , walls ect -Guided projects that are simple for the beginner. -Written in everyday English , without lots of technical jargon. -great illustrations by Tim Gough -Talks about getting your work out there as an artist AND starting a small business while remaining realistic (printing t shirts for fun and profit it ain't) -Photos of many types of creative screenprinted projects to get inspired from . _set-ups aimed at folks with low budgets , that are easy to upgrade. -Anyone with this book and a day to gather/build the supplies needed can start printing right away . - Intergrated look at screenprinting in both low tech and high tech ways.It's rare to see a book aimed at artists and crafters show auto and semi autopresses. (reach for them stars!)
What I don't like:
The things i disagree with in the book are few and relatively minor but here goes --
- In the section on doing screenprinting as fine art they advise using oil based inks. Oil inks are super toxic and should never be used in a D.I.Y set up, only in a studio with professionally installed hood vents. (and wear that respirator!). This is pretty serious , in my opinion. While in Germany we visited our friends who print with oil inks at the studio. Even though there were 2 hood vents and they hadn't been printing for hours , the air was so thick with fumes I felt sick after just a few minutes. You can get GREAT results with acrylic based inks these days and if you wanna upgrade over Speedball , there's always TW.
Same goes for plastisol, vinyl and epoxy inks kids! Ventilation isn't just an open window and a fan.
- There are a few mentions that printing on think paper leads to wonky , wrinkled prints and that screenprinters should use at least 80llbs paper. NOT SO! I think Yannick and I's body of work is a testament to the viability of printing on thin stock. Whether or not the paper will distort from water retention has little to do with the thickness and more to do with the quality and finish of the paper and how you dry the prints. I recommend thin stock for anything that will be posted in the streets as it's easier to paste up, harder to tear down and lighter to carry . If you let you prints dry well between layers you will have minimal distortion.
- Registration tabs made from cardboard are fine but for big runs you can't beat plastic. Cut strips with a ruler and exacto from the lid of an old plastic carton and you have reusable registration tabs. OR do like we do and use Dyno label maker tape. Plastic doesn't distort the way masking tape and cardboard can. You can get super tight registration that will STAY tight even if you are doing 600 prints.
So about a year and a half ago , my friend Pamela Willis was stuck needing to do polaroid portraits for a class. I volunteered and here are the results. They are all taken at the 100 Sided Die during a break between printing layers .
Yannick and I together, ugliest couple in Montreal? I think not!
Our own band is our best client, the work is steady , the bullshit minimal. There are never revisions , we always know exactly what we want and are always happy with the end result.
(Incidentally , we got picked up by our rep cause of the cover we did for The Lovvers.)
( the orange is dayglow in real life)
Front Cover.
Outside Foldout.
Inside Foldout. (photo by Yannick Grandmont)
CD Face.
And Under.
Backcover.
Close up of the photo (merci Yannick!) , masks by Morag Kydd .
The last of our installation pics from Bremen. We'll be bring this same installation to Newcastle in January. (And will most likely do a smaller poster show in London at the same time.)
Died Young , Stayed Pretty , that rock poster documentary we're in , is premiering this week in Montreal. The Hour wrote a review of it that quotes me.
Nice article here about Flatstock 18 , anyone is Seattle should go check it out. It's pretty much the best way to get an overview on what's going on in"rock art" today. Maybe you'll even get to meet Art Chantry!
Yannick and I wanna expand our C.V and international profile to try to get grants and apply for exhibitions. We wanna try the grown-up world out for size and see if it fits. If anyone has any leads on poster competitions , biennials , artist residencies open to drawers and/or printmakers , print competitions , juried exhibitions and the like PLEASE post or email me the links. Thanks a billion in advance.
Looking forward to seeing Eats Tapes again , we played with them in Amsterdam back in may (feels soooo long ago) and it was really fun ,they seem to have gotten weirder. Deconstruct!
Floor installation by Jim Lambie . Emma took us to see his show when we wereeats tapes , intercom , jim lambie , holy freaky in Glasgow , if we can make something half as good , some day , I'll be very happy. This is my favorite type of art , stuff that is conceptual but playful and witty and kinda tripped out .
LOOK LOOK LOOK! WE STARTED OUR OWN RECORD LABEL !!!!
It's called Kanker Mongool and this is our first release. The Rebel- Live AIDS ep. Edition of 350 , all silkscreened in comicbook sized covers (get it?) and hand numbered. The Rebel is usually the solo project of Country Teasers' front man , B.R Wallers. now his wife and Country Teasers' most recent bass player is joining him on metronome-like drums and things are sounding even more left field .
Art For Spastics played it this week and after we ship the orders we just got , we only have about 50 copies left. Any distros who wanna grab 'em should get in touch.
We'd both been wanting to start a lil' label for sometime but lack of finances & time always stood in our way. After our second 3rd trip to Antwerp last year (and buying every Ultra Eczema record we could get our hands on ) we started talking on the long bus ride to Berlin. The idea was to start some that , we , being record collectors , would be excited about. Limited runs , silkscreened sleeves and we 'd get to do ANYTHING we wanted too with the art , no matter how weird. And of course , all tracks would be exclusive.
About 2 weeks latter , we were in London and saw The Rebel and had our minds blown. I feel safe in sayin' that the were probably the best thing I saw in 2007 .After chatting with them a bit we wanted them to be our first record and 2 other points of our label came forth : we'd only put out bands we'd personally seen live and knew were killer performers AND we'd only put out stuff by people we knew.
So there you have it. We'll be putting out 02(it's KILLER) as soon as we have some money.
Lemon Poppy Seed : Multitasking Creativity is a new book we're in that just showed up on our door step. My favorite thing in it are the photos of a text based installation made out of ice cubes.
