Holiday Card Workshop at Baltimore Print Studios

Hello!

Yesterday I got to do another great workshop at Baltimore Print Studios!  This was the third workshop I've attended there, and they've all be so much fun.  The other two were a screenprinting workshop and a repeat pattern workshop.  Yesterday was a Holiday Card Workshop, and we got to design and print 30 holiday post cards!

We chose between making 30 of one design with two colors or 15 of two different designs, one color each.  That's what I did!

They had tons and tons of polymer plates that had words, phrases, and even pictures, borders, etc. to choose from to design our cards.

The plates are sticky, so it was easy to arrange and rearrange our designs on a clear block until they were perfect.  Then we used the letterpress to print them!

There were three letterpresses set up with ink: one red, one green, and one silver.  I did a green set of 15 on white cardstock and a silver set on off-white cardstock.  

We also printed the divider line on the back of each card so we can mail them as postcards.  It says "Letterpress printed by me at Baltimore Print Studios".  So cute!

Note the sweet doggy in her sweet sweater.

Here are my finished products!  I'm going to trim the tops a little bit and then they'll be ready to go!

I had so much fun!  Everyone had such creative designs.  I can't wait to mail them to family and friends :)  I need to take their Letterpress Workshop next!

Thanks for reading!

Repeat Pattern Workshop with Radica Textiles!

Hello!

The second awesome workshop I got to go to this week was a Repeat Pattern Workshop with Sarah Templin of Radica Textiles!  It was last night at Baltimore Print Studios, which is where Alex and I went to a screen printing workshop about a month ago (I wrote about that here).  It was so fun!!

First we learned about patterns and how using different motif layouts can completely change the overall look of a fabric.  Then we got to sketch motif ideas.

Sarah brought a lot fabric and pattern books to look at for inspiration.

To see how the negative space around a motif will look, you can cut a drawing of it into four pieces and move the pieces around.  Sarah gave us tips while we were sketching and she said I should try drawing a flowery sketch I had already done but with my left hand, so I tried that.  I liked how it turned out and that's what I used for mine!

Once we decided on a motif, we cut our shape(s) out of adhesive foam and stuck them to an acrylic square.  

We picked an ink color (we used Speedball ink, just like we did in the screen printing workshop) and used a brayer to spread it evenly onto big palettes.

Then we used the brayers to put the ink on our stamp and stamped it onto cloth napkins!

On each napkin we were supposed to try different layouts.  On one I did some up and down and side to side mirroring, another one has a half drop layout (vertical lines off from each other by half a motif), one is random (I forget what that type is called!) and on the last one I just did one line of my motif.  Here they are in order.

Everyone had such cool designs!!  They were all so different.  Here's a picture that Sarah put on Instagram of everybody's designs!

I had so much fun!!  I want to get some cloth napkins and try to make more with another motif soon!  Kyle, one of the studio's owners, used their teeshirt flash dryer to set the ink on our napkins. If I do my own at home I can iron them for a while or put them in the dryer.

I went to a fun exercise class today!  I'll write more about it tomorrow :)

Thanks for reading!

Screen Printing Workshop and Moonbot Rehearsal

Hi!

The super fun thing that Alex and I did today was a screen printing workshop at Baltimore Print Studios!  We learned so much!  It was from 11am to 5pm.  The studio is owned by a husband and wife team and they both taught the class.

We learned every step of screen printing starting with putting emulsifier on a screen and burning an image onto it, to getting your table, paper, screen, and ink ready, to pulling the ink over your screen with a squeegee, to taking the image off of the screen when you're done.  It was so much fun!  After you take one of their workshops (they also have a  letterpress workshop that I definitely want to do) you can rent studio time for $15 an hour and print your own stuff!

The first print we made was of a(n adorable) supplies list!  In orange, my fave.



Then we each picked out a transparency with an image that we liked and did the whole process of getting the image onto the screen, mixing ink to a color we liked, etc.  I picked the mouse/rat and Alex picked the narwhal!

We got a 45 minute break for lunch and we walked to Sofi's Crepes.  So yummy!  We both got the bacon, egg, and cheese crepe but there were so many kinds that sounded good.

We got to make a bunch of prints of the image we picked so we could practice and so we could adjust how we were pulling the ink to change how they turned out.  We traded afterwards so we got to bring home one of everybody's prints!  There was also a fox, a pelican, a floral pattern, and a dinosaur skeleton.

Speaking of skeletons, then we got to do a really cool two-layer print!  The first print was the outline of this skeleton image that they had.  We did that in glow-in-the-dark ink on black paper.  We got to learn how to do pin registering.  That makes it so you can line your paper up with your screen exactly how you want it, which is necessary when you do multiple layers.  Then we did a top layer that was very detailed and had all of the bones and labels and we did that in black on top.  It turned out so cool!  I can't wait to go back!

Tonight I went to my first improv rehearsal with Moonbot!  After we walked home from the workshop, we grabbed dinner really quick and then Alex drove me there!  It was at one of the other member's houses in a cute neighborhood.  We rehearsed in her basement and it was really fun!  Everybody is so nice and we had a fun time.  We have a show on Halloween!  So that's exciting!

What a fun day!!  Thanks for reading!