Internship at 3rd Rail

Paper Printing Workshop

Internship at 3rd Rail, Workshops

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Above: Images from the one day paper printing workshop at 3rd rail Print Space

This workshop was my first time as Workshop Tutor, rather than Assistant, with an adult group for 3rd Rail Print, running a paper printing workshop. I was super nervous as I usually assist but I’m really pleased with how it went- we ran to schedule, finished on time, and everyone gave good feedback and were pleased with their prints! I think going forwards I will feel more comfortable to lead a workshop in future, although I am still happy to assist as well.

T-shirt Printing Workshop

Internship at 3rd Rail, Workshops

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Above: photos taken during the 1 day t-shirt printing workshop I assisted with today at 3rd Rail Print Space

Today we had a larger group of 8 people for the t-shirt printing workshop so we overran a little bit, but it was very successful- everyone enjoyed the day and was very happy with their limited edition run of t-shirts. Some of the attendees came with digital designs which they needed help with using Photoshop, and some of them drew their designs in the morning- it was a nice mix and we managed to split the group quite nicely to two by digital or hand drawn designs to teach the various stages of the process. Lots of cool designs- my favourite was the hand drawn Dali lobster phone illustration!

Print Job for Colleague

Commissioned Works, Internship at 3rd Rail

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A colleague from the cinema asked me to print a two layer t-shirt and one layer jumper for him at the Print Space- he supplied me with the designs and clothing, and I prepped the designs, printed them onto film, prepped the screens, mixed the inks, then did the printing, as shown in the photos above!

He is very pleased with the outcome, as am I.

Research Into Creating For Wider Audiences

Accessibility Project, Internship at 3rd Rail

Dyslexia Friendly 

Key Points:

  • choose a more legible font- i.e. Arial, Comic Sans, Calibri, Open Sans (Sans Serifs preferable)
  • High contrast between text and background
  • larger font sizes and slightly bigger spaces between letters and words, and between lines of text (kearning/tracking/leading)
  • Off white neutral backgrounds with minimal patterns or pictures work best
  • Avoid uppercase/all caps/italics/underline, use bold if emphasis is needed
  • avoid green and red/pink as these are difficult for people with colour blindness
  • matt paper

Braille

Key Points:

  • tactile reading and writing system for visually impaired, blind, or deaf blind people
  • Braille symbols are formed with a matrix of up to six dots called a cell- a cell can be an individual letter, punctuation, number, or a whole word
  • uncontracted Braille- every letter is individually spelled out
  • contracted Braille- is like a form of shorthand Braille used for faster reading and to save paper
  • https://www.brailletranslator.org/

https://www.livingpaintings.org/
– These are books made for blind and visually impaired people, with the illustrations raised so that they can be touched and felt

https://thepurposelab.com/2014/09/5-tips-to-make-your-print-design-more-accessible/
– a helpful breakdown of the basics

Conductive ink
– could screenprint in conductive ink, creating an electrical circuit- this could be used to make my prints “speak” or something else?
https://www.bareconductive.com/news/make-sound-interactive-mural/
– https://www.wired.com/2013/10/conductive-ink-turns-paper-into-musical-instruments/

Things I could try/consider for future print based works

  • could try printing and applying different textures to my work- flocking, foiling, or using puff binder? This would mean my prints are more tactile
  • print on off white paper and be mindful of colours used
  • print in Braille?
  • choose fonts that are easier to read
  • making larger scale prints than I normally would, to aid legibility

This is just some research to lay the ground work for the project, but I think it’s a good start and there is already a lot to think about and potentially experiment with!

Paper Stencil Kids Workshops

Internship at 3rd Rail, Workshops

 

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Today I ran two back to back kids workshops at 3rd Rail Printspace (where I am currently interning). Both workshops had the same format, with the same end goal- every child drawing and cutting their own paper stencil design to then print their own t-shirt with.

They both went as follows:

  • Introduction to the task
  • showing the children a paper stencil in progress (i.e. some of the drawing still visible, some of it cut out already)
  • Getting the children to draw their own designs, assisting with the cutting out with a craft knife or scissors where needed (children were only to use safety scissors provided, not the knives)
  • doing a print demonstration using one of the children’s artworks- placing the t-shirt onto the carousel (already prepped with adhesive), taping the paper stencil to the shirt, putting the screen down onto the shirt, getting the child to choose the colours they wanted, blobbing the ink directly onto the screens using a paint brush, then pulling the ink across the screens with a squeegee
  • leading the printing, and pulling the ink if the child didn’t feel confident doing it and cleaning screens between children with rags and water
  • supervising the children blow drying their designs with a hair dryer

Prep done before the workshops:

  • mixing the pigments with binder (making the inks up basically)
  • applying adhesive to the t-shirt carousel board
  • stripping, cleaning and degreasing the 3 screens used
  • taping up the screens
  • cutting rags
  • drawing a rough stencil design and partially cutting it as an example
  • checking numbers and getting the correct amount and sizes of t-shirts out ready
  • setting out cutting mats, paper, scissors, erasers and pencils for the children
  • setting out t-shirt examples from previous workshops

Overall I am really pleased with how they both went! The first group was comprised of 12 11 year olds, and the second of 10 13 year olds, which are larger groups than I am used to leading an activity for, but I think I handled it really well- all the kids seemed to really enjoy it and were happy with their t-shirts! Both of them ran over time a bit, but I think with a bit more prep work and now having the experience I can keep them within the time limits in future.

 

Residency at The Playground week 1

Accessibility Project, Internship at 3rd Rail, Residency at The Playground, Weekly Summaries

“The Playground is offering a 2-month summer residency for ten 2019 graduates from Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon. This is a socially engaged residency and we invite creatives to be resident one to two days a week. The residency involves an exchange of four hours towards working with local communities in a public programme. This could include working towards a showcase of local peoples’ art, assisting at a public event, or contributing curation skills. The residency and the public programme will be coordinated by The Playground staff. As part of the summer residency graduates will get: • The opportunity to curate and exchange skills and creative practices with the local community through activities and events.
• Access to studio space at The Playground Monday-Friday 10am-6pm.
• Practice development through Careers and Employability and training on working with community groups.
• Kitchen access (free tea and coffee).
• The opportunity to be part of a pool of workshop leaders and assistants for further paid work.

About the Playground: The Playground is a space for us all to meet, hosted by Camberwell College of Arts, to share our interests and find ways to achieve new things together. In the coming months we aim to make things happen in this space for all ages through multi-arts events, showcasing opportunities, workshops and open access to lo-tech making and digital technologies.”

– info taken from The Playground Summer Residency application form

I applied for this residency and got it! As part of this I have given myself a project further exploring accessibility in the arts and the gallery space, leading on from my river project that I worked on during the MA. As I also have the internship at 3rd Rail Print Space I have decided to focus on accessibility in print. Print based work can be quite inaccessible for those with visual impairments, and reading and comprehension difficulties, such as dyslexia- so I want to challenge this and explore how we can make print based works more inclusive.

Here is a photo of my wall space behind my desk at The Playground, and a photo of what I’ve written up so far about this project:

IMG_20190812_183714_723.jpg20190812_175352.jpg

The pink sheet was taken from a current exhibition at the Wellcome Collection that I visited two weeks ago, and I think it helps to set the focus for this project.

Pigment Samples Project

Internship at 3rd Rail, Weekly Summaries

Second week of my internship at 3rd Rail Print Space and I have been given a project to work on, which is super exciting!

I’ve been tasked with creating a set of pigment sample swatches on fabric to make into a book of swatches for clients, and also to scan and digitize these for the website.

What I’ve done so far:

  • Made a file of 10cm × 10cm squares, each with a 3cm border of blank space around them on Photoshop, which I then printed onto film
  • Coated and exposed a 48 silkscreen for fabric with the 6 square design
  • Mixed half of the pigments up with transparent fabric binder, ready to be printed with and made note of which ones I had and hadn’t mixed yet
  • Ratio of 6g of pigment to 100g of binder
  • Printed 6 of these colours onto the fabric (pinned and ironed out first)
  • Ran those 6 through the baker machine

I think one of them (fluoro orange) will need to be done again as it has a mark, but I am happy with the other five. I am concerned that the other fluoro colours aren’t as bright as I think they should be, but I followed the ratios correctly, and they match the booklet from the company, so I’ll check with my manager when I’m back in on Thursday. This is an ongoing project that I’ll be working on whenever it’s quiet during the 9-5 of my internship, until I have all 19 colours printed, scanned, edited and uploaded online as well as physically to do be made into a swatch book. This is a really good way for me to learn all the stages of the process, so I’m really pleased to have been given this to do!

Printing Client Work @ 3rd Rail Print Space

Internship at 3rd Rail

Did a trial assisting with printing two rolls of fabric for a client at my internship today! This means I’ll be able to assist or lead with printing clients work in future on a freelance basis (meaning paid work!) It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be, and the hardest part was actually getting the fabric lined up and pinned properly- the actual printing was easy enough once we had decided how many pulls to do (pulling the ink across with the squeegee) and got into a rhythm.

Chuffed!