Getting older or Naturally hip

28 May 2010

Baxter - 06:45

CTICC - 07:45

quietly

Homesick Forever

I Love Screenprinting: Week Four

Time flies when you are having fun. So, my last week at I Love Screenprinting is finished and I must admit, that I am both relieved and kind of sad that I am finished. It was a great four weeks filled with a lot of learning, interesting people, projects, experience food and times. 

So I thought I would make some top 5 lists of things from my time at I Love Screenprinting:

 

Top 5 things that I enjoyed:

1. Takura's Morning Mealie Meal: Peanut Butter FTW

2. The smell of fresh metallic gold ink and clearbase: Almost like marzipan with extra fabnizz

3. The pressure washer when it's cranked all the way up: It's cathartic, trust me

4. The way that ghost images build up on screens over time

5. My cycle from Vredehoek to Saltriver: All the different smells, buildings, people, too good

My shoes have had it.

Top 5 things that I learnt:

1. Pansy hands + Screenwash = Skin Loss: Extreme Exfoliation

2. 300 DPI CMYK. Get it right, so many 'designers' don't.

3. You can practically 'gun' anything out as long as the fabric isn't white.

4. Separations are so much more than just separations.

5. Lunch is the most important meal of the day.

Top 5 things that I didn't enjoy all that much:

1. Falling off of the tall bike.

2. Having to strip and paste screens via my pansy keyboard hands.

3. Really big, repetitive runs: It's in the nature of the business

4. Making mistakes which are real: "Where are these inky fingerprints from?!"

5. Realising just how awkward my motor skills were in the beginning.

So yeah, to conclude, I am very happy that I spent my time the way that I did. I learnt alot, not just about graphic design or screenprinting or whatever, but about what it is to be involved in a small business, what it is too be a young person in Cape Town in 2010, regardless of background and about a million other things that I would have never been able to have thought of when I started there, a month ago. Oh and also that a tablespoon of peanut butter really can make a bowl of mealie meal all that much better! I ended off my time at I Love Screenprinting on a real high note. I also came off my bicycle on the way there on friday morning. I hit a patch of oily water. did some interpretative steering and then decided to go feel the curb on the otherside of the road with my hands real good. Rad, now I can't cut a piece of bread.

So have my hands + wrist

bye bye

Mike

Boulders to Breakers! Saturday 1 May 2010!

This is going to be really rad and good fun! Check out Fixed Gear Cape Town for more info

I Love Screenprinting: End of Week 3

Just a quick update. Critical Mass this morning was super good. All 3 of us from here rode, and we cycled back together from town to the workshop at about 8 this morning. Takura and I just finished the last of the 75 prints for Madame Zingara. Crazy crazy crazy hard work. Each shirt has 7 separate prints, each needing atleast 2 pulls to ensure good, even coverage. But its done and the shirts are busy drying in the rack, as I type this. I'm about to bike down to the spar to get some lunch and then it's just the curing of the aforementioned prints for today. Whew!

Cool

Mike

Week Two: Update

Hello! So my second week here has been crazy. Barnard has gone to Nam, so it has been mostly just the two of us, Takura and me, manning the I Love Screenprinting fort. Some technical hiccups last week, computer issues and so forth, really slowed us down with alot of the work that we have been doing. Otherwise, we are busy with a large run of shirts for Madame Zingara. They are very very labour intensive prints, involving take the shirts apart and using gold ink. I'll say no more!

Otherwise, it has been good and definately proving very useful in terms of research.

Learning lots of interesting things and definately changing the way I think about process and techniques and what is actually possible. However, my research paper is causing me big stress. I have barely had anytime to make more progress with it, as I have been so busy here.

Mike

Heidelberg Forever

I Love Screenprinting: The First 5 Days

I am little behind but I guess late is better than never? To fill you in, I'm studying towards a Bachelors degree in Graphic Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology at the moment. The first semester (now) is all about research and writing the dissertation. Part of the course involves doing a month long internship/apprenticeship which is what I am busy with.

I am doing mine at a screenprinting studio in Observatory called I Love Screenprinting.

I chose to do my time here, as opposed to an advertising agency or design studio simply because I want to get away from the glare of a moniter, work with my hands and learn something that I am really interested in. It is also related to the topic of my dissertation, so I am killing two birds with one stone here and getting some real good research in.

I got a little bit lost, cycling to work on my first day

Anyway. My first week here was nuts, the shop had a lot of work with a tight deadlines. We printed the posters for the Verb launch, tee-shirts for the City Slickers exhibition as well as a few other smaller jobs, including some more tees and making some positives.

The Flyer for the Verb Launch/City Slickers Exhibition

The shop is super cool, with prints off all of the posters hanging up on the wall, lots of ink everywhere and stacks of crazy rad bike parts via Tobie. The computer's speakers play a good mix of music, from Bad Religion to Bruce Springsteen to Bloc Party. If you know me at all, you will know that I am in my element! I work with two guys, Barnard and Takuru. Tobie is usually here in the morning before going off to Fittees, which is just up the road, close to the Salt River Circle.

The inside of the shop, featuring the drying rack.

I learnt how to tape screens up, dry prints, strip screens, coat screens, expose screens, pick up ink, look for pinholes, flood screens, stuff about squeegee pressures and angles, cure shirts and about a million other things. It is really interesting learning about all of the different ways that things like ink density, pressure factor into the way that you make a print. So yeah, it is really fascinating and interesting to listen to discussions over things like whether it is better to coat the outside of the screen twice, the inside once or to coat both sides twice and then to coat the outside for a third time after the first coat has dried, or something like that! It is also interesting learning about ink-trappings and how to properly separate a graphic, for the screenprinting process. It is a little bit more complicated than simply splitting the colours into layers.

Takura pulling the black onto the Wesley Van Eeden posters.

This week we are printing mostly tee-shirts, as well as one or two other surprises. Barnard has gone to Namibia, so it is just Takura and I, manning the fort. Tobie pops in every now and then, but is mostly just us two. I am writing this now, as we are waiting for NSDS to deliver some more white ink and clear base.

Here is a little clip, from the Verb website, of Takura and I printing (well, me drying) Kronk's poster for the exhibition.

Cool! Mike

Royalty

Tracks: 2

It's good to have you home

Year of the Monkey-Cat

X

Holiday Forever

Critical Mass 01 for 2010

Can't Wait

This afternoon I'm swimming to my favourite island