{"id":4116,"date":"2014-05-07T18:48:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T00:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2015-12-12T07:46:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T13:46:56","slug":"alpaca-prints-t-shirts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/alpaca-prints-t-shirts\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpaca prints…t-shirts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist,<\/a>

‘Alpaca Sky’<\/em> \u2022 print size: 18in x 24in \u2022 reduction linocut<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

Our neighbors\u2013Mindy and Linda of Galpaca Farm<\/a> have the most beautiful, engaging, patient and fun models \u2014 Alpacas! All day, our view to the south is a pastoral scene of alpacas grazing on top of the next ridge.<\/p>\n

Every year there is a Wisconsin Alpaca & Fiber Festival<\/a> to which I donate some art for their silent auction of anything alpaca related (in years past this has always been Great Pyrenees prints, since Pyrs are common as Livestock Guardian Dogs on Alpaca farms, and our Pyr, Ivan is a great model for much of my artwork). For the first time this year I made a piece featuring an actual alpaca(!). I have lots of reference photos of the Galpaca herd, but this is the first time, going through the images that I saw one that screamed “make a print and a t-shirt of me!” And so…<\/p>\n

Here are some of the steps in the reduction linocut (linoleum block) printmaking process…<\/p>\n

\"first<\/a>

First pass of color is a split run. This involves inking up the roller with a gradation of blue at one end and yellow-orange at the other, pushing the roller back and forth over the partially carved block to ink it up (areas needing to remain the white of the paper were carved out before this first inking, ensuring those areas will remain white). Once the block is uniformly covered with the gradient color, I lay paper down on top of the inked block, then crank the whole thing through the etching press (with very light pressure). Repeat about 15 times\u2013which will make at least 12 prints and probably some duds….<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

Then carve out wherever I want the print to stay that blue-to-orange color\u2014mainly the sky\u2014and ink up the roller to print the next color on the print:

\"ghostly<\/a>

3rd color (2nd pass of each print through the press) is a very transparent purple. It’s pretty saturated, but once the transparent color is laid over the blue and yellow, you can see that it’s not even purple anymore in the bottom half of the the print.<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

More carving (where I want the purplish layer to stay), and then a ghoulish green is added only to the lower right quadrant of the block (lower left of the print):

\"Alpaca<\/a>

A very bright, transparent green is added next, only to the lower left of the print\u2013for the grass on ground and in the big alpaca girl’s mouth. Upon layering, the bright neon green turns to an earthy warm green color. Perfect!<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

\"full-color<\/a>

‘Alpaca Sky’ \u2022 reduction linocut \u2022 24in x 18in<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

And finally, with the last session of carving leaving only the black, keyline image, this final (5th) color is printed:<\/p>\n

With relief, I can see that the print turned out right. It’s always a bit of a guessing game (hope hope hope) that it’ll turn out correctly\u2013ie-look close to the way I was imagining\/hoping it would turn out. 12 of them turned out with good registration, etc., so the edition is officially 12.<\/p>\n

After the last full-color print is done, I can print the t-shirts. I cut out the block around the edge of the big alpaca in the foreground, ink that up with Drive-By black<\/a> ink, and print some shirts I have in stock, special for the Alpaca Fest<\/a> the following weekend. If sales are good, I will print a limited edition (100 or less) of the shirts in one style\/color…<\/p>\n

\"alpaca_prints_tees575\"<\/a><\/div>\n

T-shirts now available!<\/h3>\n

Sales at Alpaca & Fiber Festival<\/a> were good, so I did a limited edition of Alpaca Sky tees in time for the Mount Horeb Spring Art Tour<\/a>. Buy t-shirts<\/a> at the Market Weight Press Shop<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our neighbors\u2013Mindy and Linda of Galpaca Farm have the most beautiful, engaging, patient and fun models \u2014 Alpacas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,321,300,534,6,2,39,127,5,277,42,197,3,4,299,52,206,195,1],"tags":[558,559,434],"class_list":["post-4116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apparel","category-art-event","category-art-show","category-block-printing","category-events","category-exhibits","category-farm","category-ivan","category-linocuts","category-linoleum","category-market-weight-press","category-mount-horeb-spring-art-tour","category-new-work","category-printmaking","category-reduction-printmaking","category-relief","category-studio","category-t-shirts-woodcut-printmaking","category-uncategorized","tag-alpaca-art","tag-alpaca-t-shirt","tag-reduction-linocut","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/feature_alpacasky_final_t.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35JA0-14o","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4979,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions\/4979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketweightpress.com\/here\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}