Back in 2008, Bob Boilen (host of All Songs Considered) and NPR music critic Stephen Thompson attended a noisy concert where they struggled to hear Laura Gibson perform. Jokingly, Thompson suggested that Gibson perform at Boilen’s office desk instead. She did. And, with that, the NPR Tiny Desk Concert was born. Since then, more than […]

It’s all too easy to be familiar with being underappreciated. Customers, clients, vendors, colleagues–we’d like them to notice and acknowledge our efforts on their behalf. When we pay attention to appreciation, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that there’s rarely enough. Contrast this with the rare experience of being overappreciated. Getting more credit, support […]

Sumi Ink is fantastic for making hand-drawn screen films that create exposed screens with texture and loose spontaneous marks. Sumi ink can be painted onto Inkjet Screen Film or True-Grain film to produce a variety of marks.  We experimented by painting Sumi Ink on both types of films. Thin brush strokes on Inkjet Screen Film created loose, painterly, solid lines. Painting onto True-Grain caused the ink to reticulate pleasingly into speckled marks as it dried, almost like a halftone. We exposed all our experiments onto a screen. For more details about exposing your own screen, see the following blog posts and videos: What is an exposed screen? At Home Screen Printing with Bridget or find details of our Custom Exposed Screen service. Below, we can see how the Sumi Ink behaved on True-Grain. The image on the left is the screen film, on the right is the screen print it produced. The pale areas are where the ink was diluted before being painted on the True-Grain. Sumi Ink painted on Inkjet Screen Film can be seen below. The screen film is on the right, the print on the left. We can see that the Sumi Ink does not reticulate in the same way as on the True-Grain, and instead pools in grey tones, creating an interesting effect on the screen and therefore the final screen print. These differences can be seen in the following experiments. Top left square: Sumi Ink on True-Grain Top right: Screen print produced from Sumi on True-Grain Bottom left: Sumi on Inkjet Screen Film Bottom right: Screen print produced from Sumi on Inkjet Screen Film We used these experiments to put a three-colour layered screen print together. First, printing leaves (produced by using Sumi on True-Grain) in green ink.  Next, flowers (produced by using Sumi on Inkjet Screen Film) in lilac Finally, our line drawing in black (produced using Sumi on Inkjet Screen Film).  The marks on this print are a refreshing change to the sometimes rigid designs made using digital screen film prints or pen drawn positives and offer a nice alternative if you're looking to add a little more spontaneity to designs.  To create screen films using this method you will need: Sumi Ink Inkjet Screen Film or True-Grain film Brushes For more details about exposing your own screen, see the following blog posts and videos: What is an exposed screen? At Home Screen Printing with Bridget or find details of our Custom Exposed Screen service.

Everything that happened yesterday, and the yesterdays before that, is real. It happened. Perhaps it’s the hard work you did to earn a degree, or a significant error that cost you and others a great deal. Maybe it’s a community you chose to join, or one that you failed to embrace. All of these costs […]

When we speak English, we might say we’re speaking the language of Samuel Johnson, the man who wrote its first dictionary. Or we could say we’re speaking the language of Shakespeare, who coined more English terms than any other individual in history. It would make just as much sense to describe ourselves as speaking the […]