STIP Blogpost

 Ever had a passion for printmaking but didn't know where or how to pursue it? No need to worry just hope down to Singapore's Tyler Print Institution located in Robertson Quay. The Singapore's Tyler Print Institution is an organization that was created with the mission to collaborate with leading international artists along with developing the experience and opportunities to create different prints and explore different paper arts. They have a wide range of artists who have worked in this institution such as Sun Xin, Ashely Bickerton, and Brent Harris. When we were introduced to this organization we watched a video of an Asian artist who was inspired by her spirit animal, the bird to create different art pieces representing freedom. She displayed her love for birds via prints, sculptures, paintings etc. If you would like to learn more about the Singapore Tyler Print institution visit their online website (http://www.stpi.com.sg/index.htm) and watch this informational video below.  

The first step of this project was to create a background using ink, we did that by getting each a piece of glass, then we had the option to paint different inks onto the piece of glass, ranging from blue, pink, to red or yellow. I choose to make half my paper a mixture of purple and pink, while the other half blue. I used a brayer to apply paint onto the glass, I had to make sure it was thin so it did not run when being printed. 

Once we were done with the background, we were asked to chose a stencil of an animal to apply onto our background. I choose the peacock stencil apeacockcecock means a lot to me as it represnts a piece of my heritage. The peacock is the national bird of India where I and my family are from, so I decide it would be cool to shine my favorite colors on the peacock template. Once we had chosen a animal stencil, we were able to either apply the negative parts of it or the postive parts of it. I choose the negative as I wanted my peacock to be multicolored as it symbolises India and all the types of people that make up this unique nation. However, if I wanted to use its positive part I would have painted black ink inside the animal rather than around it. 

Then in order to get the background a single color to show the negative parts of the peacock stencil, we got a screen and placed the background print onto a flat surface while we cut out the part of the stencil we wanted. So I had to cut out the otuline of my peacock, then we placed the screen over the background. Then I applied black paint onto the screen while I pulled the ink along the screen, once it filled the bits of the background that we not covered with the peacock, we toke it off and it created a black ink background while my orginal background filled the shape of the peacock. 

Then we were allowed to add embellishments on it, I decide to use a white oil pastel to create swirls on my peacock to represent the different cities in India. I choose white because it contrasted with all the colors visible on my print, from black, pink, to blue. This was definitely my favorite and most successful part of this project as I was able to see it all come through, each and every bit of the project tied together to end up with a master piece, in my opinion ;). I am overall very proud of this peacock print and am thankful for the help of the Singapore Tyler Print Institution to guide me through this process.