Project 2: Digital and Screen Print

This project is the one I had most trouble in. Mostly because my first edition fell flat as a pancake. I intentions and message were not conveyed very well.

For this project, we could use any method we wanted, but we had to include something printed digitally(with a printer) and a screen printed element plus an extra technique called "flocking" which is applying some sort of grainy substance to a sticky surface, much like putting glitter on glue. With this is mind it is wise to print digitally before anything else.

Originally, my intention with this piece was about the contradiction between what people say and what they do. I wanted to use mouths and hands do give the clue into their meanings. I split the sides of the page with red-orange and blue and I tried to make a two-face faced figure. My original idea is to the right. However, I had unknowingly triggered thoughts of gender in viewers. The lips are feminine, and the hands are more manly. This also tricked the viewers into seeing different genders on the faces of the figure. and the white streaks were purposeless. So I had to go a different route.

In the end, to prevent any confusion, I had to literally spell it out for people, because this kind of topic is hard to display visually. My final piece below Walls takes a different approach and builds on my previous intention, which was too shallow. I printed digitally, then screen printed, then I used flocking with black glitter.

There are many walls in life, not just physical and mental walls, but the walls that people don’t even notice. I am talking about the walls put up, between what people think and what they do. Some people have strong barriers where almost nothing gets by, other have no wall at all and do whatever they think about doing. This wall is the line in the sand that we dare not cross; how we draw it says something about our character. In the digital and screen print, Walls, there are two silhouettes on opposite sides of a wall. One is holding it up, representing the conscience telling the person not to do something; while the other, the primal instinct to fulfill desires, is trying to break through. They are accompanied by the text in the background “DON’T” and “DO IT” to further visualize the mental battle taking place. The figure representing the conscience is holding up the wall, but very nonchalantly, as though at any moment, they could let that wall fall down or they could hold true. What situations you let that wall down for, the decisions you make, show a little about who you are as a person.