Material, process, print by Viktoria Hristova
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Research A Paper to the 5 Print to the 5 Colour to the 5 Page Divider Main Research 5 Pages Book Cover
Task 1: Exciting example of paper
Our first task was to research and find an exciting book, magazine or publication which explores various different printing methods, paper or just anything we find exciting. I saw some pretty good examples but I decided to base my research on paper. Not any paper but plantable paper. This summer I went to the Chelsea summer show and the leaflets were made out of plantable paper. Plantable paper is a biodegradable eco-paper that is made with post-consumer materials (no trees harmed for this paper!) and embedded with seeds. When the paper is planted in a pot of soil, the seeds grow and the paper composts away. All that is left behind is flowers, herbs or vegetables and no waste.I planted mine and wild flowers came out of it. I found this remarkable. Not only the paper is in great use, it’s eco friendly, there’s no GMO in it and it leaves something beautiful after and it doesn’t just get thrown away.
Paper to the power of five For our first practical task we had to to explore and find 5 different materials, with which we had to try out one printing method, create and print the same image on each of them and see how the the ink reacts to the different papers and textures, is there any change in colour, appearence or something else. I found some fantastic paper and went a little bit out of the brief and I used 7 types of paper and a piece of fabric to print on. The paper I used is: 180 gsm recycled cotton paper; 120 gsm glossy paper, 200gsm Kodak photo paper, 120gms matte colour paper (grey, blue, pink, green, mint, red); 200gms purple matte card; 70gsm yellow printing paper, 80gsm super glossy dark purple, brick wall 70gsm gift wrapping paper, 220gsm matte black card,100gsm glitter gift wrapping paper, 70gms high gloss paper (gold, silver, baby pink, pink, red)
I used screen print for my main method and also made a couple of digital prints using the same paper and colours to make a comparison. What I've learned is that paper is the main thing about creating a book. The way it feels when you touch it, texture colour and thickness leave bigger impression than the print itself. I personally loved the recycled paper the most. The colour, texture, imperfect edges gave the print a very vintage edgy look. I found that colour paper doesn't work well for digital prints because it changes the colour too much but it works perfectly well for screen print and I guess any type for manual printing. I'm not a huge fan of glossy paper, I think it's more of a magazine thing rather than a book. Out of those prints we had to make a book. I made the book two sided – where the first side is screen print, and the other
side is flipped backwards and its made of the digital prints. Another thing I learned from the experiment is that screen prints are a better quality (at least in my case, I understand that there are really good new digital printers), glossy paper only works well for digital prints and not as much for screen prints, newspaper gave me the best quality print (hard to believe but it’s a fact). The best experiment I made was with screen prints was with using glittery wrapping paper I cut to A4 size, I didn’t expect the prints to come out so well but it interacted with the ink really well, creating a beautiful contrast. I also noticed that the different textures of the paper give me a different feeling, like they work with your senses, and the same image interacts very differently with the viewer depending on the paper’s colour.
Side 1: Screen prints
Side 2: Digital prints
Print to the power of ďŹ ve Similar to the previous task but this one is about exploring colour and layering in the context of printing and image-making. We had to think about the ‘four-colour process’, colour theory, layering, overprinting, pattern, solid colour, opacity and texture. This time we only had to choose one type of paper, the one that worked the best in the previous task and one printing method with two ink colours. I chose the recycled paper and the printing methods I used were: digital print, riso, stencil using spray paint, screen print and lino print. The image on the right is a scan of a digital print on recycled paper.
Stencils Stencil prints using spray paint. That was my favourite technique so far, I found that it gives me a lot of freedom with layering, colour, it can be done on any surface and there is a lot more to it to explore. I've started looking into different ways to layer images on the top of each other to get a beautiful finished piece result. For our next task we will have to produce 25 prints of the same image using one technique and I'm now considering looking into stencilling.
Riso Prints This was my first time playing with the riso printer and I fel in love with it. The riso is unlike every printer, it allows me to edit my image manually from the device itself, which I love and no 2 prints are the same. The riso is more like a handcraft and I felt like it gives my prints more value than a standart laser print.
Screen Print
Screen prints are always great quality, works perfect on every surface and they are great if looking to use a different type of paper or texture. So the best quality technique I've found.
Lino Print
Lino was a nice and quick technique but for a nice lino print the artworks has to be different from the style I did for this project. It's definitely a technique I like but not something in my style. I found that you have to be very careful with the paper choice for lino prints. Glossy or matte recycled ink didn't work for me.
Colour to the Power of Five For those prints I've printed two colours on the top of each other - red and green. I like the 3D glasses effect it gives the image and the slight mismatch of the two layers it kind of makes the image look coloured in. I chose riso printer for this project because it's nothing like a digital printer, embracing unpredictability is part of the fun, It's better to work the colours by hand separately than work with the computer. Riso print looks more handicraft; the beauty of the process is that it creates small mistakes - there's no point in trying to make it look perfect.
Divider Page Proposal We were given the task to design a divider page with an image and also including information about each work, and the name of the students. For my divider page I drew a deconstructed burger. I just wanted to create something funny rather than serious and I chose this because it represents how everyone's work together creates a whole. The page had to be riso printed so I created different layers for each colour.
Spray Painted Stencils Graffiti and street art can be controversial. But it can also be a medium for voices of social change, protest, or expressions of community desire. What, how, and where are examples of graffiti as a positive force in communities? In many cities, graffiti is associated with decay, with communities out of control, and so it is outlawed. In some cities, it is legal, within limits, and valued as a form of social expression. “Street art”, graffiti’s more formal cousin, which is often commissioned and sanctioned, has a firmer place in communities, but can still be an important form of “outsider” expression. Interest in these art forms as social expression is broad, and the work itself takes many shapes—from simple tags of identity, to scrawled expressions of protest and politics, to complex and beautiful scenes that virtually everyone would say are “art”, despite their sometimes rough locations. Street art that is sanctioned as a way to ameliorate dull facades is effectively assimilated as city property; it can no longer be about the conflict of ownership. It may critique the city’s aesthetics, but the city becomes as much the critic as the artist. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s about moving on, changing the guard.
I choose to explore this subject more because as an artist I think graffiti are very empowering. Art is power and when people in power believe something firmly, it’s worth paying attention to them. And I think they believe firmly that you should not have revolutionary popular art in which people participate. This is why I believe graffiti in London and many places have such short life and have been taken off.
Image credit: Banksy
Research In a modern street art world that appears to be placing a focal point on muralism and commercially successful pieces through which a profit is a distinct possibility, the stencil graffiti remain as arguably the most authentic and rebellious form of urban art to date. This old-school technique is definitely the closest contemporary method that honours all the aspects of the original street art scene without compromising any of its norms. It offers instant recognizability, speed, efficiency and neatness – all of which come very in handy when a person is creating an illegal graffiti and time seems to be an essential factor. In its very core, a stencil is different from any mural or a piece of marketable street art – it stays clear of the spotlight and prefers functioning in the shadows, has a practical tendency of staying small and to the point, avoids too much colouring and it never lost its defiant punch that made it famous in the first place. Stencils can also be perceived as an evidence that one does not need to paint
big in order to be successful – by far more important factors than size are relevance and placement of the piece. This quick and relatively easy technique of street art making is also popular because of its cheapness – all a person needs in order to make a stencil graffiti is a piece of cardboard, a knife and a can of spray paint, making the artistic vision placed behind the piece the only challenging bit in the entire process. As is the case with the rest of the genuine urban art scene, stencil graffiti as well have but one purpose to serve in their often short-lived lifespans – to
communicate an uncompromising and unfiltered message with accidental bystanders. The method of stencil graffiti painting has been present in the world of street art ever since this technique emerged during the 1970s in the metropolises around Europe and the United States. Those who produced and utilized stencils over the years had many motivations, but all of them shared the same appreciation of the publicity that this type of artwork can receive. Due to the unique method of stencil making, the same piece
can be reproduced over and over again, allowing the design to stay uniform throughout its use. This makes stencil graffiti the most efficient tagging method, both from a quickness and neatness standpoint, allowing the practitioner to easily establish a reputation with the audience of the streets. All of the abovementioned aspects and characteristics of this medium made it extremely popular with illegal street art making that was exploding during the 1980s,
although today’s adaptations of the technique are a bit different in that regard. This underground medium has seen its fair share of talented artists over the years, many of whom we will introduce you to in this article, all in an attempt to explain both the history and the nature of the often overlooked stencil graffiti which is undoubtedly an essential segment of the street art culture.
History of the Genre A little-known fact is that the concept of spraying a quick image onto a surface via a pattern of some sort can actually be attributed to the United States Army – soldiers used this tagging method in order to mark equipment belonging to different divisions. Furthermore, during conflict times, the army would mark directions and information on urban surfaces of war-torn towns, making stencils in order to enable normal functioning of the soldiers who needed to know where to station themselves. Besides marking the buildings and equipment with stencils, the World War II American soldiers would often spray tag their tanks and artillery with motifs of angels or skulls, all with goals of scaring the enemy and raising morale. After the World War II came to an end, stencils remained the most efficient tool of on-the-spot organization within the army, but also became a popular method for civilians to defy the current political situations and demand changes. Many European cities were covered with rebellious stencils, all of whom were protesting against the ruling class and displaying anti-government statements. This early form of street stencils was highly dangerous and popular, but was still far from an artistic expression – they were simply the most efficient way to protest against something with solid chances of getting away with it.
The European early stencil situation eventually managed to migrate over the Atlantic and
is the year of 1968 when John Fekner placed his work outdoors for the very first time. He worked
leading to a time when stencils were the freshest segment of the urban art scene. Parallelly
arrive on the shores of the United States in the 1960s. Back then, social turmoil could be found all over the USA , with public unrest over various civil aspects being present in middle and lower circles of society. This instability gave rise to antiestablishment movements directed by punk rock bands such as Black Flag and Crass. In an attempt to self-promote their songs and simultaneously show their anti-government opinions, these bands covered their punk venues with stencils,
in the Big Apple and his graffiti became a segment of the underground culture overnight – John was the only one of his fellow urban artists to use the stencil and the public never saw anything like it before he started working in this method. One of Fekner’s best artworks was a stencil titled Wheels Over Indian Trails and it greeted motorists and international travellers arriving in New York City from a suitable location at the Pulaski Bridge Queens Midtowns Tunnel. Since it was painted
with Fekner and his development of the stencil, the French urban interventionist Ernest Pignon-Ernest also worked on his own take on the medium – his stenciled silhouette of a nuclear bomb victim was spray painted in 1966, in a town of Vaucluse. However, besides John Fekner and Ernest Pignon-Ernest, the stencils did not manage to find too many noteworthy individuals interested enough to take the medium a step further and improve it, subsequently
presenting their logos and names, lyrics and logos. Often used as a reference for the true artistic beginning of this medium
over by the artist himself in the year of 1990, the remembrance of this graffiti nowadays serves as a path down memory lane,
impacting the medium’s natural evolution. Fortunately, this all changed in the early 1980s.
Blek le Rat Blek le Rat, the stencil’s most important early practitioner, sprayed his first pieces of this style in 1981, placing them around Paris. He is often described as the father of stencil graffiti and learned a lot about his practice by studying fine art and architecture at the prestigious École Des Beaux Arts in Paris. He was heavily influenced by the New York street art scene which he inspected during a visit to the Big Apple as a student, developing an overwhelming fascination with this art form. However, Blek desired to create something of his own and new, something that would distinguish him from the rest of the urban painters and establish his reputation as a leading author of graffiti. So he started making stencils of rats, distributing his pieces around the City of Light. The utilization of pre-stencilled posters and images allowed the application of paint to be a lot speedier, which proved quite useful since Rat’s activities were illegal at the time. Soon, he acquired the famous nickname thanks to the animals he depicted – this was Blek’s intention from the start, as RAT is an actual anagram for
ART and, in his opinion, rats symbolized both freedom and the spread of art throughout the city as an invasion. He was making large murals as well as self-portraits, always accompanied by rats which in return became a trademark and a unique tag. He created socially engaged artworks, intended to bring attention to global problems, often depicting marginalized individuals opposed to large oppressive groups. Blek is credited as the first person to transform stencil from basic lettering into systematic al imagery, as well as the first one to introduce the life-sized pieces of this method. Over the years, it seems that the subject of Blek’s depictions has changed a bit – as he matured, he became more focused on questions that regard politics and environmental problems. Blek le Rat will prove to be a key moment in stencil’s transition to street form and many of his works are yet to be visually surpassed. He is also one of the most referenced artists by other artists as mostly all of the younger stencil makers owe their techniques to Blek le Rat.
Final 5 pages
Page 1 Based on my research I analysed stencil art, its practitioners,equipment, tools, approaches and outcomes, past and present.I discovered and documented a sequence of visual and physical responses from the materials I collected. From this I have developed a set of 125 prints (5 designs and we have to make 25 physical copies from it). All this I have put into a final designed and bound book from everyone’s collective work. The images above are my 3 final outcomes for the first page, called 'The beginning'. The first stencil to be ever used was in the U.S. army, during WWII where soldiers used to create number ‘registrations’ for their vehicles and mark is with the U.S. army symbol – A star. So for the purpose of my image I found a picture of the first stencil to be ever created, I used the same registration number they did and designer an identical star, found the most similar font I could (stencila) and made it into a poster. Out of the 3 finals I chose the last one because I like the use pf navy green card (200gsm), it suggests military. For the type I made double stencil layer with black on the bottom and white on the top because it makes it look three dimensional.
Page 2: Broken Promises After the World War II came to an end, stencils remained the most efficient tool of on-the-spot organization within the army, but also became a popular method for civilians to defy the current political situations and demand changes. Many European cities were covered with rebellious stencils, all of whom were protesting against the ruling class and displaying antigovernment statements. This early form of street stencils was highly dangerous and popular, but was still far from an artistic expression – they were simply the most efficient way to protest against something with solid chances of getting away with it.
These are my experiments and outcomes. For the first image I used ‘Octin Stencil’ font, but I thought that the font doesn’t have a character. I like how on the original reference image (left) letters are not in a straight line and the same size so I decided to illustrate my own font and cut it out. This is just what I did for the 2rd and 3rd image. I created the images it on 200gsm multi colour paper.
Page 3: The Art Of Punk Black Flag and Crass were punk bands to first commercialize stencils. They used it to promote their albums leaving stencils around the city. Using the same font as the black flag original logo I made my own version of it focusing on the flag rather than the type because I wanted to change each stencil and make my own design. I experimented with different paper and colours but I decided to use a white card (again 200gsm) and black image, because all of my other pages will be more colourful and I think a monochrome image will be nice and add more variety into my work.
Page 4: Le Rat One of the godfathers of the European street art movement, Blek le Rat inspired hundreds of artists around the world with his stencilled style. He is frequently cited as a major influence of artists like Banksy and Space Invader, and through his work in Paris he established a style of urban art that quickly spread through Europe and eventually the United States. This is exactly why I dedicate this piece to him. He is the godfather of stencil graffiti, where controversy originally started. Blek created most of his stencils by hand to control the level of detail in each piece, although he occasionally started from Xeroxed copies of photographs. He would painstakingly remove all grays in order to create black-and-white stencils. This process gave his work a bold quality that made an instant impression with fellow street artists. This is the technique I also used for my piece, I hand drew my image, trying to make it look like a photograph and controlling the level of detail.
I twisted things a little from Blek's original work and compliment his art by creating a female figure, instead of a man, with a rat on her shoulder and it’s tale in her mouth as a sign of appreciation to his creations. This is my way to compliment the beginning of stencil street art and him from my own point of view. I experimented with different card and colours, from monochrome to the complete opposite and creating a rainbow neon image but for my final images I’m planning to create a simple 2 layer stencil in black and white on a red card
Page 5: Poptrait
After complimenting other artist’s and their work I thought it’s time for me to create something mine. So as I was going through different eras of stencilling and moving on to more complicated artwork I thought it’s finally time for me to create something my own. As many modern stencil artists I created a self portrait. For the purpose I bought neon spray paint and neon paper because I wanted to create something as colourful as me. I wanted to try and make the stencil a little bit more complicated so I cut out 4 different layers of stencils to create one image.
These images show the different layers of stencils. The process was quite simple. On photoshop I posterized a self portrait of mine, removing the background and colouring it in different colours. Then I separated each colour into a different image and printed them out. After I coloured in each stencil in different colour and Ta-da!
Some of the many images. I made each and every one different and unique. I used UV spray paint for all of them and different colour paper from normal colour card to glowing UV, all 200gms.
This is the front and back cover of the ‘Material, process print’ book I made. I used the stencil font ‘Take cover’ because it relates to my stencil work inside. Colours I used are yellow and black because this is my all time favourite colour combination for prints. I used images of splashed ink because this is what our work relates to, right?