A busy student

On Monday morning I rushed off to class, full of energy to get printing with my new screen.  I had my original ready to be transferred onto the screen.  It took for ever!  I was told my original on tracing paper would need to be transferred to paper because the sellotape joining 2 sheets of A4 together would show on the exposure.  So I copied it, and was advised not to transfer to acetate (which I prefer) but to oil the paper to make it translucent and expose that.  I hate oiling the paper.  You end up with a horrible sticky mess, and the oil gets everywhere. 

It took 5 attempts to get a satisfactory finish.  At first there was only eucalyptus oil available.  I managed to transfer dirt from the newsprint onto the first attempt, transferred coloured ink from the newsprint onto the second, transferred printing ink from the bottom of the bottle to my hand ( and then to the 3rd attempt).  The 4th was ok, until I went to have a cup of tea, and came back to find eucalpyptus oil evaporates and the paper was no longer translucent.  The fifth attempt was done with a heavier oil and I managed to expose this one.  But before I could expose the screen, I had to clean the exposure glass because the previous students had left oil stains from their prints. Grumble, grumble.  But once my silkscreen print was exposed and hosed off, it looked wonderful.  All this to-ing and fro-ing took about 4 hours.  So much for planning to get some prints done this morning.

Then it was my Visual Inquiry class.  The tutor looked somewhat askance at my conceptual pattern making based on my knitting and Jim's washing up.  But once it was explained she appeared quite mollified.  And when she saw other sketches I had done in my visual diary (yes, I'm actually using it now) she said she liked the conceptual patterns taken from brushing my teeth, and swimming. 

Swim training, and brushing my teeth

Knitting while Jim washes up

The tutor also said next week we have our mid semester assessment!  I thought it was the week after!  Good job I'd already started the catch up work.  So when I went home, I carried on with pattern making, using black and white,  and created  one sheet of work. 

The following morning I carried on with pattern making using colour versions.  I worked today for about 6 hours, before I went to my 5pm class.  And this pattern making does nothing for me.  It is a pedestrian exercise, using square repeating blocks.  I need plenty of examples in my visual diary, but it's not adding to my pattern making skills, or to my enjoyment.  So by the time I went to class, I was out of sorts.  And I managed to miss the bus, because the sonic key would not open the gates of the drive. 

So then I sat at the bus stop, and drew the pattern on the top row of the bricks on the wall I sat on while I waited.  This made a much more interesting pattern than anything I had worked on all day.  I should keep my visual diary with me and just draw things that interest me. 

The pattern of the to pbricks in the wall by the bus stop