For this exercise I’m choosing an area of authorial practise and picking some artwork I’ve made already for the course that would be appropriate for it.
I started by leafing through all the images I’ve made for the course and making a digital collage of anything I thought had any merit as something to be printed.
I wanted to make sure I gave due consideration to all the areas of authorial practise mentioned in the course material. Most of the artworks I looked at understandably I felt best suited prints, some maybe fashion printing, and a few more as decorative illustrations.
Making a fanzine of the coursework I’ve done so far would be an interesting challenge, but a lot of work, and probably not very profitable! Some of the exercises favoured illustrations targeted at children so there were one or two artworks that I feel would be a good fit for children’s publishing.
I decided to put a bit of effort into really materialising one of the artworks as some kind of marketable thing. There are a lot of webistes available that some of my other artist friends use to sell merch, like redbubble and society6. There’s also local print and copy shops that I’ve used in the past to make prints for different fairs and conventions. Online stores can also do printmaking. All of these options can wind up pretty expensive. I’ve made a print of one of my artworks for a previous assignment just to see it as a real poster.
Many of the artworks I feel would look okay if I were to get prints made of them, and I think I will need to get many of them printed when I submit my work for assessment. I wanted to do something a little more interesting that just choosing some choice works and sending them to the printers though.
My girlfriend has done some printmaking in the past so I asked her what would be a good practise to follow to create something for the course, without being exorbitantly labour intensive or expensive.
She said transfer printing is really easy to do so I went with her advice and thought about what images might work on something like a t-shirt or a tote bag.
I went to my local craft store and bought some transfer paper, and then headed to the supermarket and got some plain white cotton t-shirts.
I chose three images to print, wanting a good variety of styles. I printed them onto the transfer paper (and used up the last of my printer ink…) and transferred them onto the t-shirts with an iron.
Here’s the final results.
And an obligatory cringey mirror selfie, replete with messy room.
I’m glad I decided to do some printing for this exercise. It was fun and easy to do. It made me happy to see my work on a t-shirt, it made me confident as an artist to see something tangible with artwork that I’ve made on it.
Josh Robbins OCA Learning Log 