A lot of times, I find that my personal projects develop from a desire to try a new technique, rather than any sort of subject matter. While this can lead to trouble a lot of the time, it also works to my advantage on occasion.
For this project, I wanted to test out large format screen printing with a reductive process. I started out with a simple separation printed on vellum, which was essentially a large rectangle with the text "Make Some Damn Shit" in a full reverse. I then used this original separation to lay down a full flood of color in blue. But then, the project took a turn away from normal.
Using a variety of tapes including duct tape, scotch tape, electrical tape, and others, I began to selectively remove bits of toner from my original separation. This left some really nice texture on the resulting separation, which still shows through in the final print. After I had removed a fair bit of toner, I would again expose my separation in the darkroom and print another layer. Stick, peel, print, repeat.
As a final bit of process mayhem, once the majority of the original toner was gone I began to add india ink in the form of mug stains and drips in order to add a little more additive imagery to the print during all this reductive work.
The final product is a 9 layer screen print at 26" x40" and a handy reminder to stay on point.
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