Perpich residency, 6 hours
Much of this week was really a big push for me in terms of getting my lesson prep finalized for a demo at Perpich. As previously mentioned, I'll be doing a demo on CMYK color separations for screen printing, as well as some "as needed" demos on the printing process itself. In addition to the planning backwards model for the lesson plan, I've prepared a leave behind packet that gives background and step by step instructions on the entire photoshop color separation process. I've done a fair amount of teaching demos and instruction in the past when I worked at Highpoint, but I've never written up a teaching document or handout like this, so it was kind of a cool experience. It was also personally beneficial, in that it raised some questions about the idiosyncrasies of my practice or process with this technique; I realized that I do some things that are actually kind of redundant or unnecessary to create the images. The packet has a lot of information, but I think it's presented in an engaging and easy to understand manner, and will hopefully be helpful as a follow along guide for my demo, and as a leave behind document afterwards.
In addition to the lesson plans and documents, I prepared a step by step CMYK print, to show how the layering works in succession. It's basically a set of four prints, with the first one containing only the yellow layer, then yellow and cyan, then yellow, cyan and magenta and finally all four colors. The image itself is of some recent work in my studio that uses gradients and intense colors, so hopefully it'll be a good visual aid as well as a demonstration of what a wide variety of colors can be achieved with this technique.
Things went well actually being at Perpich this week as well. Monday was primarily a work day for the students, as they critiqued on Wednesday. There was some pretty exciting work going on though, and the students were generous enough to let me take some pictures. The first image is of a single layer relief print over collaged elements; the student was interested in the construction of identity, self and idealized images. The next image, of the blue flowers is actually an intaglio plate, but the student used shellacked cardboard instead of a copper plate, as they wanted to work larger than the 4x6" plates Perpich offers. The prints were beautiful as well, but I was most intrigued and excited by the ingenuity of the substrate, along with how refined the image is for being carved into cardboard. Lastly is an image of drypoint print combining three small plates, all around 2x4.5". The student was interested in space, gravitational fields and landscapes, as well as combining multiple prints onto a single substrate. I was impressed again with how refined their technique was and how nuanced the images are, but also that they created a series of images that dances around a theme without being explicit; nothing is didactic and the narrative connections are there, but are not immediately obvious or over the top.
