a little photo-structional tour of me making a two colour stencil on a record sleeve. back

COMATONE asked me if I could do some kind of limited ed art (100) for a split E.P he's doing with another chap we know SLEUTHOUND. You can listen to "The sun Sets over a bad day" from the album here http://www.myspace.com/chainhalo. we chucked about ideas of screen printing or block prints, but we decided that stenciling was the way to go. It's simple and cool and doesn't involve learning anything new about printing or fiddling about getting screens prepared and whatever. It's nice and DIY, which I love. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the colour stencil taped, ready to get paint...  I like to cut stencils from clear acetate or red in this case (its just what I had). I design the art on computer then print it on paper, tape it to the underside of the clear film and with my sharpest snap off blade box cutter I cut.

Here I am applying a Datsun "soft blue"... Because spray cans Don't like working horizontally, I made a masking tape and cardboard rig to hold the whole show vertically to a piece of MDF...

Having a peep... I made a masking tape hinge on the screen so registration is a bit easier, also holds the whole thing pretty steady and flat to the sleeve. I also like to make a heavy cardboard frame with these acetate stencils because they have a tendency to curl when you spray paint on them.

Touching it...(This picture really doesn't show allot, except that I put way too much waxy junk in my hair that day.

Registration issues... I realised I hadn't figured a way to make sure my two stencils registered with each other accurately. I don't see a whole hell of allot of geometric or repetitive pattern stencils anywhere, now I know why. Stencil printing is a bit rough (or it is when I do it), if you've got a very detailed pattern it's almost impossible to get everything lined up, not only does the stencil stretch slightly when you’re cutting it, but the thing will curl when wet and lift when you blow blasts of air on it. Each of these things will throw the registration off by a millimeter, which adds up to millimeters of inaccuracy down the line.

Registration solved... Yeah, I just lined the black stencil up by eye held it steady and taped it down... here I am taping the back of the second hinge.

Black paint... Popped a bit of paper over the other screen to minimize overspray.

TA DAH!!! Here’s the finished test print/paint. (0/100) I'm actually pleased the registration was this good. The whole hand made nature of this said there was never going to be machine precision here, it feels hand made and that’s cool. I was most pleased that the type was readable and somebody recognized my mild Louie Vuitton corruption. (stupid yuppie shit)...

five different colour fronts and 3 different colour backs. 100 in all... very nice...