Thursday 7 November 2013

Silkscreen Process: Atlas (Four Colour Separation)




Atlas by Silkscreen. A4. Four Colour Silkscreen. 2012.

As a part of a printmaking unit last year at university, I had to produce a silkscreen print. This is the first time that I have worked with this media. This print is based off one of my colour drawings of my character Atlas. 

I had some screen issues when printing Atlas. Firstly, I over washed a part of the right side face when flushing the exposed emulsion. In silk screening, you expose the emulsed screen to light. Any area that you want ink to pass through and thus print is blocked by a pattern, allowing the emulsion to remain soft. Any area that is to be masked and not allow ink through hardens because it isn't covered by a pattern. When you wash the screen, the soft emulsion only is removed but that doesn't mean that the exposed emulsion can't be damaged. 

Other imperfection like the streaking on of the blue layer I cannot explain. They do look very interesting though and I don't find them much of a problem to the final image. 

The print was done in four colour separation: C Y M K. Below are the layer proofs, which make obvious the mistakes I are when cleaning the screen. 




Saturday 2 November 2013

Fallout: Lanius Behind the Scenes Interview.



... The DVD is coming soon...

For more information on the Fallout: Lanius fan film check out the YouTube page (Fallout: Lanius) or Facebook (Fallout: Lanius).

For more of my art checkout: denlscheer.weebly.com
Or find me on Twitter and Instagram at DenLScheer

Monday 26 August 2013

Fallout: Lanius Legionnaire Sketches




More artwork can be found on my website www.denlscheer.weebly.com
or on Facebook (the page not profile), Twitter or Instagram under DenLScheer.

The Fallout: Lanius movie will launch on the 27th of August on YouTube. More information can be found on my website or on the Fallout: Lanius Facebook page.

Fallout: Lanius Costume Sample- Shadowpeak



More artwork can be found on my website www.denlscheer.weebly.com
or on Facebook (the page not profile), Twitter or Instagram under DenLScheer.

The Fallout: Lanius movie launches on 27th August 2013 on YouTube. More information can be found on my website or on the Fallout: Lanius Facebook page. 

Fallout: Lanius Sketches- Tribal Women





More artwork from Fallout: Lanius can be found on my website www.denlscheer.weebly.com
or on Facebook (the page not the profile), Twitter or Instagram under DenLScheer.

The Fallout: Lanius movie will be released on the 27th of August on YouTube. More information can be found on the Fallout: Lanius Facebook page. 

Fallout: Lanius Tribal Costumes- Warrior Men




More Fallout: Lanius art can be found on my website: www.denlscheer.weebly.com
or on Facebook (the page not the profile), Twitter and Instagram.

The Fallout:Lanius movie will be released on August 27, 2013 on YouTube. More information on the film can be found on the Fallout: Lanius Facebook page.

Saturday 10 August 2013

Fallout: Lanius Tent Concepts

Several tent designs were used in the making of Fallout: Lanius. My drawings (below) were not used in the final movie, though. After reading the script, my ideas were researched through a day of playing the Honest Hearts DLC of Fallout: New Vegas, looking for concepts to adapt. For each design, I had to keep in mind the possible locations for burners and a throne. Each image is drawn on smooth, 150gsm watercolour paper in graphite and watercolour pencil.

The first set of designs are based on the tribal sets of the game. 



The second set of designs have a stronger legion influence. 



More Fallout: Lanius art can be found on my website: www.denlscheer.weebly.com
Or Twitter and Instagram under the name DenLScheer.

The Fallout: Lanius movie will be released on August 27, 2013 on YouTube. More information on the movie can be found at Fallout: Lanius on Facebook or the Fallout:Lanius YouTube channel.


Effects of Etching Grounds

For one semester during my second year at university, last year, I specialised in printmaking, specifically etching. I wanted to explore how each ground used on a steel plate could influence the bite of the acid, and therefore the visual aesthetic or quality of a print. Upon raiding the scrap pile in my backyard, I discovered some rusted steel and experimented with it in combination with different grounds. The results were quite unexpected.

This first print was printed on found steel that had been buffed and cleaned of fingerprints. It has two layers of shellac as a ground. Using a photograph of my dog, Pan, as reference, I scratched into the shellac with a sharpened nail. As a side note, the black spots are from ink trapped in shellac imperfections. 

The benefit of shellac is that it is easy to produce a sharp line deep into the ground, biting as a clear, crisp line. The downside is that shellac is very difficult to remove from a plate (if you intend to reductively aquatint), to the point that I would recommend to not waste your time attempting to remove the stuff. I'd recommend using it for additive aqua tinting though.

Regarding printing, shellac plates are my favourite. The ink is very easy to scrim and clean from a plate in comparison to bitumen based grounds. It is a lot less stress on your joints and requires far less work. One thing to keep in mind is that if the shellac is scratched or damaged, without being carefully patched and bitten, the marks can show in new prints. 

Shellac.

Pan with bones.


Found steel, soft ground. 

My grandparents have a tray in the kitchen of their homestead where they put the interesting things that they find in the farm paddocks. Some of these things include: shotgun shell casings, nails, parts of machinery, animal bones and horns as well as improvised tools. The plate below is an experiment to study the marks made by a large square razor blade.


Bought steel, soft ground.

I sketched onto the ground with a red copic marker to get an idea for he composition before scratching into the surface. Surprisingly, the marker bit with the rest of the etching, hence the sketchy outline on the left and the white blocking on the right. 


Found steel, soft ground.

Life studies of Pan drawn with the round end of a crochet needle. 


Found steel, hard ground.

Sketch of Pan. I wanted to try filling in the drawing with hatching.


Found steel, soft ground.

Outlined with the metal of a shotgun shell. The toning was done with a razor blade that produced an unexpectedly fuzzy line. 


Found steel, soft ground and sugar lift.


Found steel, hard ground.

Life drawings of Pan done with a nail. 


Found steel, bitumen.

The steel plate was covered with a ground of thinned bitumen. Using a rag soaked in turpentine, I removed some of the bitumen like you would ink in monoprinting. The effect looks a bit like a reverse monoprint.


Found steel, soft ground.

Drawn from a photo of myself and Pan cleaning rabbit meat on the farm. The outlines were drawn with a nail and filled with a found screwdriver.

Fallout: Lanius Sketches

Working with the sets, props and costumes of Fallout: Lanius, I was presented with the opportunity to study how each object was constructed. One of my jobs on set was to help maintain the contents of those departments and I could not help but make some drawings when filming ended. 

There were several tattoo designs for the tribal men which were applied by the makeup department. One night after shooting I scribbled some designs in my Moleskin, a couple taken from the ones the makeup dept. developed. 


Using a mixture of my assistant's hair extensions and a series of wigs and dusters, I was able to make the plumes of the helmet. The hair was stiffened using layers of PVA, paint and hair spray.


Below is a set sketch from one of the quarries Fallout: Lanius was shot in.


The beauty of the bomb collar was in the detail. It was a clean and simple rig based on a pin system. 


The Vaulter was featured in the teaser for Fallout: Lanius, which can be viewed of YouTube. This watercolour is a sketch of the costume.


More artwork can be viewed at my website www.denlscheer.weebly.com
or on Facebook (the page not profile), Twitter or Instagram under the name DenLScheer.

Fallout: Lanius will be released on the 27th of August 2013 on Youtube. More information on the film can be found at the Fallout: Lanius Facebook page or on my website.

The Centaur: Monoprint and Sketch



The Centaur. A2. Monoprint on Canson. 

In drawing my Centaur (a human with a horse head) I wanted to experiment with coloured inks. Using a thinner, I mixed red, blue and yellow into the Monoprint mockup. As the details developed, the colours began to show where the ink was reworked and removed. 



The formal concept of the pose began with a cardboard thumbnail sketch (seen taped on the top right of the drawing above). I developed the thumbnail into a two tone conte sketch on some brown paper. This particular sheet was used as a slip on the base of a transport pallets, so was conveniently as similar size to my A2 printmaking paper. The blue that presents under the conte was the working sketch, made in blue Schmincke pastel.

More work can be found on my website: denlscheer.weebly.com

More work in progress pictures can be found on my Instagram and Twitter: DenLScheer

Printing Issues: A Sticky Plate.

I define a sticky plate as an etching plate that will not clean properly. In the case of the plate below, there was a patch of ink that did not want to be removed. It caused me a lot of problems until, eventually, I figured out what I was doing wrong. 

After inking the plate, it was scrimmed normally and printed. That was when I noticed the blemishes in the centre of the print. This etching was done on new, buffed steel, so the only marks that should have transferred would be the etching itself, not the clouding.

Below is the first proof of the clouding plate. 



I printed the plate again but this time the print was worse, proving that I wasn't necessarily scrimming poorly. I highlighted the area of concern on the paper, then set about fixing it.




Beginning a new print, I concentrated on scrimming the clouding area clean. To my surprise, the print proofed as shown below. The clouding was far worse. After showing my prints to my tutors, we drew the conclusion that I must have unknowingly used contaminated ground rollers. 

Soft ground and hard ground are grounds made of Vaseline and bitumen. Soft ground has a higher proportion of Vaseline to bitumen in comparison to hard ground, which has more bitumen than Vaseline. In consequence, hard ground has a higher melting temperature than soft ground.

When applying either to a steel plate, the metal must be heated. At university, we use a large hot plate. Because of the different melting temperatures, both grounds have separate rollers for application. I used soft ground on this plate, so the soft ground roller must have been contaminated with hard ground.

After printing the picture below, it became obvious that the ink clouding was accumulative.



Rather than cleaning the plate with oil, I decided to find something more heavy duty to strip away what was attracting the ink. I used a turpentine soaked rag to strip the plate.

I then inked, scrimmed and printed the plate normally. 



The print proofed with little detail because of the shallow bite of the plate. I didn't let the acid bite through the soft ground long enough. 


By the time I got to this final print, I think I've got the plate figured out now. After inking, I lightly scrimmed over the etching, concentrating instead on cleaning the border of the plate. The result is the print above. It is not a a good print, due to the shallow bite of the plate. It is not a bad print for the plate though. 

Website:www.denlscheer.weebly.com
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Reduction Linocut- "Pan in Yellow, Orange and Black".



When we were first told in class to produce a reduction linocut I was terrified because of the risk involved. One mistake and the entire plate (and capital invested in printing paper) is jeopardised. An accidental cut can be difficult to salvage, but I have found that a small mistake can be fixed by filling the reduction with superglue. 

Before engaging with a reduction print, you need to consider how big the edition will be. This can influence what paper type you use and ultimately, the cost of the paper. For this print, I used Smooth Canson 300gsm printing paper and a Silk Cut 30x30cm Lino plate.

I'd recommend devising a colour coded reference picture of what zones your image will have. I used a photo reference of my dog, so that ahead of time, I would know which section would need to be cut when and where. 

Below are the colour proofs of each inked layer, so you can see how the plate was reduced. Proof prints are important in printmaking and are used to check: press pressure, ink distribution and plate faults, so that your final prints on potentially expensive paper aren't ruined accidentally. 

Also, keep in mind that as the colours layer, they can influence each other. For example, if you choose to use a red-based initial colour, do not print on top with a blue-based colour as it can muddy the image. Make sure each ink chosen has the same base colour.


Layer 1: Yellow. 
After sketching the outline of my design, I cut away what I wanted to remain white (since I was using white paper). What ever I did not cut was inked in yellow and printed. I chose this colour because my dog has gold markings.


Layer 2: Orange.
Now I have cut away whatever I wanted to remain yellow. In this case, it was the background and highlights in my dog's markings. 

Layer 3: Black.
My dog has a primarily black coat, so I wanted to print this tone last. It is largely for outline purposes. 


The reason I have placed these proofs below is to allow comparison. I experimented with different paper types to record the proof, each showing various degree of detail.


This proof was made on cheaper 300gsm printing paper than the editions prints. It shows some detail, but not every minute cut like the print below. 

The lower print was made on tissue wrapping paper from an arts equipment supplier, and shows far more detail than the above print. This paper is very thin at less than 80gsm (the weight of standard printer paper). 

I would put this difference in image retention to pressure. Because the top image is printed on thicker paper, the press would have pushed it further into the shallow cuts of the plate, thus reducing the image quality. The thinner paper, under less pressure (but enough to maintain plate contact) retained detail because I wasn't forced into the shallower cuts. 


As a student, I find it educational to study the plates of printmakers because they show the working process. The plates remember the ways they were cut. 

For example, here I have used a hatched method on the background for smoothing, to stop texture reprinting in later proofs. 


The final image can be seen on my website: denlscheer.weebly.com

More work in progress (WIP) images can be found on my Instagram or Twitter: DenLScheer

ESCAPE Exhibition 2013 Opening Announced






The ESCAPE Exhibition Opening has been announced for Tuesday, 3rd of September. It will be housed in the foyer of The Central Park Building, located on the corner of Hay and William Streets, Perth. All funds raised will be used to support they homeless of Perth.

The exhibition will be open to the public between the 3rd and 6th of September, with an opening night auction commencing at 6:30pm. The Rotary Club of Crawley will donate a prize or award on the night to the most highly voted artist. 

Tickets are available for $30 online at Trybooking.com/DJGX or for $35 at the door. Places are limited so book now! Canapés and drinks included. 

I have donated a woodcut print above.

For more information check out:
www.facebook.com/denlscheer
www.twitter.com/DenLScheer
Or DenLScheer on Instagram

Friday 19 July 2013

Fallout: Lanius Pax AUS Teaser




Fallout: Lanius will be released today at PAX AUS! More information can be found on the Fallout: Lanius facebook page (here: https://www.facebook.com/FalloutLanius?ref=br_tf)  and the teaser can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl8uBs7nGB0

Geraldton Tour July 2013: Bluffpoint Primary School


Bluffpoint Primary School hosted a group of four authors and illustrators for two days to promote literacy and the arts to the school children. In conjunction with Mt. Gibson Iron Ore and the Children's Charity Network, the speakers included: Kevin Burgemeestre, Sally Murphy, Cristy Burne and Den L. Scheer (see picture). The event ran over July 3rd and 4th.

Cristy has written about the event here: http://cristyburne.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/back-from-geraldton-the-naidoc-sports-festival-rocked/

New Facebook Page

My new Facebook page is live! You can find it at: https://www.facebook.com/DenLScheer if you are interested in my artwork and working process.

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Inaugural Geraldton NAIDOC Sports Festival

The Geraldton NAIDOC Sports Festival was launched today in beautiful weather. Organised by Margaret Maxwell, seven local schools attended for a day of inter school softball. During the byes, the children were able to engage in various activities including: painting, author/illustrator talks and a Polaroid photo booth.

In celebration of NAIDOC, the Yamatji Brothers presented a corroboree of four dances, performed by local high school students

There was a notable emphasis on health at the Sports Festival. For lunch, accompanying the chicken and beef sausage sizzle (having that option was lovely) there was a selection of healthy snacks. Four types of dips were available including: capsicum, two onion variations and a chickpea salsa with flat bread, carrot, celery and cucumber for dipping. Another table presented fresh popcorn. Since the sausages were not cooked a this point, all of the children were happy to eat this food. Few complained.

Another show of support was a free calico pack of goodies for each child. Inside was a CD of music that discusses mental health, brochures of support numbers and information about Kidsport (which promotes youth recreation),  a sticker and a postcard. 

The supporting activities to the Sports Festival were fun for not only the children attending, but for the speakers as well. The Giggle Box photo booth was great fun, with four photos taken per sitting. I made it my mission to have picture taken with all of the other speakers, which was successful. The students, especially, loved the photo booth and were supplied with novelty hats appropriately to use as props. As a distraction for the children to break up a day of sport, this was a genius idea. 

Local artist Patrick Lee was generous enough to donate canvas grounds to the event. Each child was proposed the opportunity to hand print the canvases in acrylic paint with the speakers joining as well. Each attending school will receive a canvas, which is a marvellous way to engage the students with their school. Wooden boomerangs were located on a separate table to be painted as well.

A group of authors and illustrators were sponsored by the Children's Charity Network and Mt Gibson Iron Ore to talk to the students. The group included both interstate and local speakers: Kevin Burgemeestre, Sally Murphy, Cristy Burne and myself, Den L. Scheer. The school children were split into small groups for readings and a Q&A session and we will be work shopping at Bluff Point Primary School for the next two days. To me, this seemed like a casual way to introduce us to the kids so that when we do start to teach them our faces will be familiar.

Margaret, you did a fantastic job organising today and I would highly recommend attending the event in the future. The activities were fantastic. It was well publicised with local media attending and the food was fantastic. Great work. 

Monday 1 July 2013

Arriving at Geraldton

After a delayed flight (which resulted in free coffee and pizza as compensation from the airline) I am now in Geraldton. It was so lovely to see green fields and to smell wet grain flats again! I guess it just shows how long I've been in the city.

Tonight myself and the other speakers were treated to a lovely dinner by the attending Children's Charity Network rep. Whilst in a farming area, I'd highly recommend ordering a scotch fillet, else a salad of local produce. Also, go all the way and splurge on local wines. Margaret River will seldom disappoint you.

Tomorrow we will all be attending a local festival and Welcome to Country, work-shopping later with some visiting schools. I am so excited to be out working in the bush again, although the 6am wake up is a bit scary for a university student. This should be a beneficial exercise in breaking nocturnal is, though.

Friday 28 June 2013

Morrison A/W2 2013: ANTECEDENT

Models wearing Morrison A/W2 2013: ANTECENDENT

Wednesday, 5th of June, saw a substantial gathering of Zontans (Zonta International members) attend the Claremont outlet of Morrison. As a fundraiser for the foundation, Morrison was generous in donating 10% of proceeds from sales on the night to Zonta.

Three models (including myself on the right) volunteered to show the clothes during the night. Whilst the attendees enjoyed wine and cheese the garments were cat-walked with several clothing changes

Thankyou to everyone from Zonta and Morrison for the lovely night. Thanks too, to everyone who bought garments as well, thus giving funds to the foundation.