Process & Production - The turkey saga continues...

After sleeping on it, i went back to the pile of yesterdays screenprints thinking that maybe they weren't as bad as i remembered. They were. So i turned to the digital print dungeon on order to make a blemish free version, and also to see how it compared to the screen printed image.

I'm not sure how i feel about the results.

The 'best' Turkey screen print (left) vs digital print, 

both on Snowden 300gsm Cartridge paper.

 DIGITAL VERSION:

+ Obviously everything has printed out exactly where is out to be, with no streaks, blobs, patches, inconsistencies in ink coverage. No surprises there really.

+ Haltones are replicating the accurate illusion of grey shades that i had planned.

+ Allignment spot on. Again, its been done by a printer, that part of its job.

+ None of the hassle of the whole strip/dry/coat/dry/expose/wash/dry/print/clean/dry process, with the very real possibility of poor, un-useable final outcomes. 

+ Less time consuming.

- Colours, even though i had made the image in CMYK colour mode, came out dull, and the black came out almost a dark, dark grey. Can work out why this would have happened, as the image on screen looked bright & bold. Was getting prints done at the same time as Jack, who's blacks also came paler than than they looked on screen. We both used the same paper, but can't imagine that could be a factor..?

ANALOGUE VERSION:

+ Compared to the digital print out, the colours look so much more vibrant.

+ I started to appreciate the blemishes and imperfections, as it gave it a bit more character than the flat digital print. Though there are way too many blemishes, and massive imperfections on these to get away with selling them. I'm still not sure they're good enough to submit neither. Marks on the screen from previous use is frustrating also.

+ it's spirit crushing when it goes wrong, which is lots, but when it does go your way (which is rarely at the moment) you do feel a bigger sense of achievement opposed to knocking up a bit of work and getting 20 identical versions of it printed out by a machine. 

- There are too many things that can randomly go wrong, and so many things to remember to prevent those things happening. Admittedly, I'm a novice at this still game so can't be too hard on myself for not knowing how to prevent them all...but i am!

- The amount of time the whole process takes so long, which for the most part i enjoy. It wouldn't feel so long if it produced decent fruit all the time, but at the moment I'm just making manky bananas, and no-one's interested in manky bananas.

- They do seem to more appealing than digital prints, which i totally disagree with - but it does appear to be the way things are for many people when looking to purchase work.

I'm contradicting myself a bit here probably, but basically I'm saying i'd forget all about  digital printing if i got absolutely shiiit-hot at screen printing. But thats not likely in just a few years dabbling with it, and maybe the sort of work I make is just better suited to being replicated digitally?