Some time between the last post and this most current one, I found myself caught up in a veritable whirlwind of activity/insanity that essentially made it impossible for me to want to spend any extra time in front of a computer than was absolutely necessary each day, and so when I was finally done working on my various projects at the end of each day, writing fresh blog posts was pretty far down on my list of things that sounded like a really fun idea.

The unfortunate downside to this is that there was a lot of really interesting stuff that happened over the past 4-6 weeks that didn’t get documented and probably never will. I don’t worry too much about this, however; life would be a hell of a lot more boring if I actually took the time to stop and write about every little thing that happened, which would probably result in a lot less happening anyway, meaning there wouldn’t be anything worth writing about, meaning I’d have to go out and find interesting things to do…lather, rinse, repeat. You get the jist.

I am more than pleased, however, to take this opportunity to provide a bit of a recap on the highlights of what transpired during the latter half of May and all of June, including visual flair to make the journey more engaging for everybody. And, you know, to prove that I actually did all this stuff.

I thought I would take some time to follow up on the my last post and show off the progress on my newer pieces. I completed my latest screen printing assignment this week, and overall it turned out fairly well. The print, if you’ll recall, is very dynamic and motion-oriented. In addition to deriving its inspiration from a body of works from other designers in the field, the piece was also deliberately constructed to be an exercise in observing the energy and momentum of each specific layer as it was laid down on the sheets.

I took the time to document the process of putting this one together from near-start to finished, with unique looks at how the layers come together along each step of the process. The term “screen print” is tossed around fairly commonly, and while most people know what the end result of screen printed materials looks like thanks to what they see in stores, few know what it actually means, and how the process comes together.

My apologies, friends. This is long overdue, but life has a way of throwing things at me as soon as I sit down to start writing. I think it does this deliberately.

To begin with, the prints I made from the design in my previous post turned out very well. I decided to run an edition of 12 rather than 8. I am giving one or two away, and I might be tempted into selling some more for five or ten bucks. Additionally, the shirts I made from this design were pretty slick, and I have one extra men’s medium sitting around, so if anybody is interested, it’s available for ten dollars. Maybe less if you’re special. And now, on to more important things.

First up, two shots from my next screen printing project. Inspired by 80’s retro (and according to Ed McDonald, a bit of Swiss Modernist), I present to you “On Advice for Living 2″.

This is actually a simplified, derivative version of a more intricate design I created in my spare time a few weeks ago, but as you will see below, much of it was far too complex to translate successfully over to a stencil for screen printing. I think each of the different versions has its own merits.

I thought I might share with you all the newest design I’ve created for my Screen Printing class. The assignment was to make a piece that uses four colors, and we’re going to be using the photo emulsion process for creating the screen stencil as opposed to blocking out the design by hand as we did on our previous project. I fully intended on dropping in a shot of one of my finished prints from our first project before posting this up, but things never do seem to work out as you plan them. Which is an all too convenient segue into the print itself:

The idea behind the print is that no matter how much you try to plan out your life, particularly in the mid-to-long-term, you can’t count on that plan to hold out over time. You need to be able to live in the moment and make decisions on the fly, especially important ones that may have long term impact.

Everybody please remain calm. I am working on adding a new feature to the blog that dynamically updates the color scheme depending on the time of day. This is awesome, to say the least, however because I am retarded (and too impatient to take the time to set up a proper test page), the best way for me to handle this currently is to just drop the functionality in, activate it, and begin tweaking and watching the changes come alive in real time.

It’s going to be a messy few days. But it will be neato when it’s all done.