New In The Studio - May 2018

Funny thing...I'm not a big fan of still life art. Never have been. But, I came across this fruit still life in a vintage comic book awhile back, and really liked the style. Minus the 'dots', the image reminded me of a Roy Lichtenstein painting. I've been meaning to make a print of this image for several months, and I finally did.

Funny thing, No.2...I've been screen printing for a number of years, and this is the first time I've printing anything in four color process (4cp - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black; CMYK is the standard method of commercial printing.) Aside from trying my hand at CMYK printing, my goal was to recreate the image as close as possible to the original comic book image, with the bled-out color, texture, cross hatching and halftone dots.

This experiment turned out to be a success, though I learned I need to work on my formula for thinning out the Cyan ink to be a little brighter and more transparent. Otherwise, the darker shade of Cyan still looks great. The Magenta thinned out nicely, and overlaps well with the yellow ink to make a nice Tomato Red color.

The print measures 6 x 8 inches, printed on 140lb Accent Opaque White cover, and is signed and numbered in an edition of 10. I'll probably print another run of these on tan/yellowish paper to mimic a vintage comic page even more. But, this was a good jumping off point to shed my anxieties in printing 4cp. I may even print a larger, 18 x 24 size for grins, which would make the image even more striking in person.

You can find these hot-off-the-press prints available in the Napkin Art Studio Etsy shop for a limited time.