PROJECT OBJECTVE:
You will create a two color poster design using either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. You will be introduced to what makes a good poster design. You will evaluate several poster designs, learn the steps to creating a screen printed poster design as well as being responsible for creating a unique, well thought out design of your own. Once the designs are complete, you will learn the full screen printing process on paper and become certified to use Open Studio at Ink Lounge. The one day workshop will cover the basics of screen printing on paper. The workshop will cover art, film prep, screens, mesh, emulsion, squeegees, inks, exposure, registration - pretty much everything you need to know to get up and printing. Printing: You’ll be printing 10 prints of a single image you create or select from our library. Final size of print is 11x17 and you will use the same 2 inks colors on all 10 prints, but on 10 colors of paper so you get a chance to see how the inks react with different paper colors.
BEGINNING STAGES:
I started with first round sketches that had the basis of the bottle and/or the cowboy hat. I really liked the idea of the cowboy hat, but I also knew that the bottle made the most sense for the song: Hole in the Bottle by Kelsea Ballerini. After critiquing, I knew it would be best to go with a bottle to add dimension to the piece. I also knew that the words "hole in the bottle" would need to go inside of the bottle. By the second round of sketches, I knew that I wanted a certain sort of color palette. I wanted to go with a simple green for the wine bottle and then fun colors for the cowboy hat and background. I then used Illustrator to come up with a simple design of the bottle/hat and a color palette. At first, I wanted to hand letter the words that were inside of the bottle, but I ended up liking the way that the Drunk Cowboy font looked better. I found that it was more readable and fit the vibe of the poster better.
FINAL DESIGN:
I used Illustrator to create my final design. I ended up going with a bottle and a cowboy hat because it mixed country with the meaning of the song. I ended up going with these little fan looking cactus designs because I felt like they were giving off major country cactus vibes. Overall, I think that this gig poster combines Kelsea Ballerini's music with her trendy, country taste. Kelsea wears lots of red at her shows, so I think the color palette that I chose fits her just as well as it fits the poster. The poster fits the vibe of the song because it is bright and colorful, and the song is upbeat.
SCREEN PRINTING PROCESS:
The screen printing process in itself was definitely very time consuming and challenging. I appreciated how much time and effort was put into each screen, but I under estimated how much work it would be. This was my first time screen printing and I felt very overwhelmed. There is a lot to be thinking about in such a small amount of time. Personally, the hardest part was putting emulsion on screens and exposing them because of how time sensitive it is. Maybe it was just because we had limited time due to class periods, but it was hard to prep all of my screens perfectly when there was such a short amount of time and no room for error. I had the most fun actually printing the posters and seeing the ways that different colors reacted on different color paper. I originally intended on just having white paper, but I ended up liking the colored paper much better. The colors on my final project are not exactly what I intended, so next time I want to take advantage of mixing inks to get the exact colors that I want. My two favorites were the navy and pink paper. I did not dislike the white paper, but I thought that the colored papers added another aspect to the poster.
FINAL SCREEN PRINTED POSTER:
Here is my final poster! The next time that I screen print I want to take advantage of the endless opportunities and different inks hat I can mix.
