Boy and Bear

I've been super busy recently but I've had some spear time for some quick concept work.

Bear Prince

I was a bit scared of my wacom tablet when I first got it, imagine the first time man discovered fire, you think of all the great stuff you can do with it, you imagine how it's going to change your life, but when you pick it up you get burnt. Then you get angry, and stamp on it, and call it a stupid piece of shit. 

Anyway I've noticed, with drawing, most things take a lot of practice, patience and experimenting and I bloody love my tablet know.  I'm busy colouring up some bears here’s on of them so far, they'll be more to come. 

"PUT A BIRD ON IT!"

I've assigned commands to my tablet buttons, mainly so I could sit back on the sofa and have my laptop on the table and not have to be hunched over using the keyboard. The buttons are oddly shaped and I would often hit the wrong one so I stuck form stickers so I could easily tell where they are. Plus every thing looks better with a load of stickers slapped on it.  I may have also just watched to much Portlandia.  Don't eat the pips. 

Screen Printed Bear, now on sale.

'I think of you often' is now on my ETSY store. To view the listing and details go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/lenallwood or click the shop link on the right. 

Don't eat the pips. This first run of prints is limited to 5, you will receive a signed certificate with your print.

Don't eat the pips. 

Golden, Sparkling, Vinyl Screen Printed Bear of Dreams.

So Iv'e just finished screen printing this. I’m posting the progress of the screen printing technique I used. I usually screen print with the traditional method, exposing screens etc, but this time I used a vinyl cutter to make a stencil instead of exposing the image onto the screen. The reason I did this was mainly to test the level of detail I could achieve with the vinyl cutter, and if I simply could screen print that way.

I’m really pleased with the end result; I think the paper and the bear complement each other completely. 

I wanted to give the character a delicate look due to the material I was using, so I hope this comes across and please let me know what you think. 

First I sketched the image and scanned it in at 600dpi gray scale. I find this is better for pencil sketches. It didn't really matter for this but I thought I would mention it. 

Next  I drew it up using the pen tool in adobe illustrator. I had to do this because the vinyl cutter recognise paths made in illustrator. 

The vinyl cutter then cuts out the image. 

Parts of this image where extremely intricate such as the fur of the bear. Naturally these parts I had to take care with when cutting out so as not to tear the vinyl. 

I used a knife to remove the unwanted vinyl, leaving a negative of the line work that I would pull the ink through. 

To remove the whole vinyl sticker in one go I used a sheet of masking tape. I stuck this lightly onto the front of the vinyl. 

I then stuck the vinyl onto the front of the screen before removing the masking tape. Which gave me the stencil. 

Finally was the taping up of the screen and pulling the ink through. The fabric paper is extremely thin the the metallic paint would seep through to the bed. Which meant wiping it off before the next print. 

If you have any questions about the print of the process, drop me an email or leave a comment. 

DON'T EAT THE PIPS.