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Sylvia by Dennis Jacobs

I completed a mixed media painting this weekend, entitled Sylvia. The piece measures 12″ x 16″ and is made of hand cut spraypaint stencils over collage on board. Below is the process by which I created the piece.

As with any painting I do, I start by laying down a base layer of collage. With this particular piece I used clippings from vintage magazines, anatomy books, old magazine ads, maps, newspaper, and photos from military books.

This particular painting required two stencils, based on a digital illustration, to complete. Rather than printing and cutting one stencil for each color I instead use the each stencil for multiple colors. For example, I will cut out the sections that for red, spray it, then tape them back into place. I will then cut out the black sections and spray them. This helps to make sure the registration of the stencil is correct and also saves time on cutting stencils. While this does result in the stencil being destroyed, I only make one off paintings, so I will never need to reuse a stencil. If i were to begin doing multiple paintings of a single image, I would then create one stencil per color needed.

See more process pictures as well as the completed painting after the break

Starred #29

Photo by Ingrid Fabiola (via PICDIT)

Alex Varanese (via Design Work Life)

Cisco Ksl (via Hard Feelings)

Love the lighting in Jessica Tremp‘s photos (via The Strange Attractor)

Page Tsou (via OK Great)

Named after the Add Star feature in Google Reader, “Starred” is a column about things that catch my eye as I peruse the blogs I subscribe to. If you’d like to subscribe to Perfect Laughter, here’s a link to our RSS Feed.

Erik Otto: The Last Shall Be First

We first discovered Erik Otto while on our honeymoon in San Francisco. I remember a huge installation of multiple framed paintings that included really detailed screen printed elements. I scrawled his name in my notebook. After I got home and looked him up, I saw that he was about to embark on a four month residency at the San Francisco Dump. As part of their recycling efforts, they invite an artist to use discarded materials to create a body of work. Erik’s show was entitled “The Last Shall Be First”.

All of this was made from leftover house paint, spray paint, and found panels. I loved following along on his blog as he made amazing artwork out of what was essentially garbage. More photos of the show can be found at erikotto.com. Up next, he’ll be in a show at Whitewalls this weekend along with one of our other favorites, Armsrock.

Announcing: Our Next Print, “Clara”

Our latest print is done! “Clara” is a 4 color screen print. Each one is printed by hand onto a page of antique sheet music. We sized it to fit into IKEA frames so it can be framed very affordably. The print is 8.75 x 11.5 inches and we did an edition of 30 this time.

While we were trying to decide what to name her, I looked up the history behind Schumann’s only piano concerto, which is what we used to print on. It was Schumann’s wife, Clara, who urged him to finish the concerto. She was then the first person to play the solo part when it premiered in 1846. Coincidentally, Clara was my piano teacher’s name and the person who gave me the sheet music. I hope she doesn’t mind that we sacrificed it in the name of art.

We’re very grateful to 323 East and City Bird who have both decided to carry it in their stores. It’s also available in our online shop. (By the way – if you missed out on our first print, “First Snow”, 323 East and City Bird still have a couple of those left.)

Experiments and a New Jon Smith Print

If you haven’t noticed, Dennis has been holding down the fort around here. That’s because I’m working on a complete redesign of the blog. Have you missed me?? I really missed posting! I asked Dennis if I could have a turn today so I could update you.

I had planned to spend my whole break on the site, but something unexpected happened. Our “First Snow” print sold out at City Bird and they asked us for more!! After Dennis picked me up, spun me around and took me to Howell’s for a pitcher of beer, we got right to work on finishing up the next one. We wanted to print this one on old sheet music that we hand stained with tea and an ink wash. Each song had a name on top (“Confidence”, “Lost Happiness”, etc.) and we were in love with the idea of using it. Here’s what the inside cover looked like:

As it turns out, wavy, water damaged paper doesn’t screen print well. At least, not large blocks of color. The valleys in each wave were not picking up the ink in the screen. So after we had hand stained each piece of paper and I’d spent hours meticulously trimming 1/4″ off of each side, we had to admit that it was a failed experiment. Water and screen printing are not friends. Or so we thought.

Last night after taking out my frustration by killing my husband over and over in Mortal Kombat (sounds worse in print), I found this:

“Blotter Color” is a 4-color print by Jon Smith. Before printing the last color, the black line work, he splattered watercolors on each one. Each print is listed individually in his Big Cartel shop. He talks more about his experiment on his blog, including a video that shows the differences between each print.

Why did his experiment work but not ours? A few reasons, maybe. He used thick watercolor paper while our sheet music was really thin. And, he only printed line work on the watercolored paper where we were printing large blocks of color. Plus, we really waterlogged our paper all the way to the edges, and it looks like his edges aren’t wavy at all. Or maybe he knows some crazy witchery.

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