Click click!

And thank you!

No idea how this is gonna go, so I'm just posting step by step.

I've been keen to try my hand at silkscreening for a while now, and finally picked up a cheap kit to see what it was like. I didn't want to spend too much in case I totally suck!

I bought this for half price @ £38. Came with screen, acrylic paints and printing medium (textile and screen), squeegee, drawing fluid, screen block, apron and guide.



Last night I took this old design:



Printed out a b&w copy:



Traced over it onto my screen with the drawing fluid using a brush:



And left it to dry overnight.

This evening, I applied a layer of screen block over the whole thing.

My first coating was incredibly thick - I used up over half a tin of the stuff - but it didn't look or feel right, so halfway through I did some Googling and checked out a video. Then went back and scraped off most of it, leaving the screen covered, but without a thick heavy coat.

I hope I've done it right. It's now drying overnight.



Tomorrow, I'll wash out the drawing fluid.

I'm getting a second screen, as I'd like to make this a 2 colour design. But I suspect that's a bit overambitious of me for a first attempt!

----

Dried screen block:



Right, 'washing' was NOT what I had to do. The bloody drawing fluid is like glue, and it certainly sticks to the screen like crazy. I had visions of the design magically appearing as I gently rinsed the frame but no such luck - eventually I had to use a toothbrush to scrub it off, and in doing so, a lot of the screen block went with it as well. The design is still there, but a lot of the detail has gone :(

It's drying now, so I'm gonna wait till it's completely dry, then try to repair the damage by painting back the details using screen block. I don't think it'll be easy cos screen block's like a paste.

I'm a bit disappointed, but I have no idea what I could have done differently. That drawing fluid simply would not come off by itself!

A mashup of two timeless, larger-than-life icons.

5 colours on dark grey/asphalt.

THE KING - Updated

Trying to get back into it after not having drawn or subbed anything for a while. This is a rework of an unsubbed design from a while ago. Decided to go with a slightly more cartoony version, as the previous fellow was a bit too scary looking :)

THE KING



Haven't started playing with colours yet. Does it need a background?

Any comments, suggestions or tips gratefully received.

PS This was the old one.

I bought a shirt for a friend on my account.

Can he upload a photo on his account of him wearing it if I give him the order number and postcode?

I'm thinking of buying some t-shirts during this sale.

$15 x 2 shirts = $30, which is coming to about 17.9432 GBP according to today's exchange rate.

Anything over 18 GBP is liable for a UK Customs charge - it doesn't always happen, but it can, and it can be pretty hefty.

I'm thinking of putting through two orders, but I'm a bit nervous, cos all I need is for the bloody exchange rate to shift slightly and I'll get a pretty eyewatering charge.

What do you think?

U.S. man who prayed while daughter died convicted of homicide

A Wisconsin man who prayed instead of seeking medical care while his 11-year-old daughter died was found guilty Saturday of second-degree reckless homicide.

Dale Neumann, 47, was convicted in the 2003 death of his daughter, Madeline, from undiagnosed diabetes.

Prosecutors said the girl couldn't walk, talk, eat or speak. But instead of taking her to hospital, people surrounded her and prayed while she lay on the floor of the family's home in rural Weston, Wis. Someone called 911 when she stopped breathing.

Neumann's wife Leilani, 41, was convicted of the same charge in the spring and is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 6. Both face up to 25 years in prison.

Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.

"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumann testified. "I am not believing what he said he would do."

Neumann said he thought Madeline had the flu or a fever, and several relatives and family friends testified they also didn't realize how sick she was.

Marathon County Assistant District Attorney LaMont Jacobson told jurors Friday that Neumann was "overwhelmed by pride" in his interpretation of the Bible and selfishly let Madeline die as a test of faith. Neumann knew he should have taken his daughter to a doctor and minimized her illness when speaking with investigators, Jacobson said.

Doctors testified that Madeline would have had a good chance of survival if she had received medical care, including insulin and fluids, before she stopped breathing.

The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated about 15 hours over two days before convicting Neumann.

LINK

This t-shirt made it to the Metro, which is London's free morning newspaper. There's a regular section highlighting internet oddities, and they did a feature on TKCM.

Here's the ONLINE LINK.

Got this off Boingboing today, and I'm giggling my way through the story.

It's a webcomic about a roleplaying game where the long-suffering DM is trying to run a Lord of the Rings campaign with some totally juvenile but superfunny PCs.

Start here

But I AM getting annoyed!

I want to submit this photo for the gallery. I've got the order number, I've got the postcode and I've got the email address. But it keeps saying "Uh oh, there's a small problem!"



A change from my standing-in-my-bedroom photos!