I have my second screen-printing class tomorrow evening, and I’ve quickly vectorized a sketch as something to test print:

I doubt I’ll get all four colours done tomorrow, but I’m looking forward to trying! This definitely won’t be my final image - I knocked it up fairly quickly and it’s pretty sparse, but I’d like to see how a vector illustration style translates onto ink and paper. I have some more evening classes and an entire Saturday workshop to go, so I’d like to work on something entirely shiny and new for my edition. I’ll have to run into town early tomorrow to get my plates printed onto acetate; I’ve run out of ink-jet transparencies but, hey, they’re not quite opaque enough for creating crackin’ exposures from anyway.

I am absolutely loving screen-printing. Okay, so it’s incredibly messy and expensive and long-winded and tiring, but…I think I’m addicted. I came home from my first class with ink on my hands and a grin on my face. I’ll definitely set something up at home, although I’ve probably been spoiled by all the lovelylovely professional equipment we’ve been using.

After much code-wrangling, I’ve finally launched my new portfolio site:

I’d previously used Wordpress for content management purposes, but moved over to Expression Engine for this project. Wordpress is a great tool, but I found that I had to hack it to pieces and install multiple plug-ins to coerce it into meeting my demands. Fair enough, as I was trying to shoehorn entire sites into the frame of a capable blogging application. No, what I needed was a robust CMS, so I decided to invest some time and switch to the much lauded Expression Engine. Being used to Wordpress and Movable Type, I was scratching my head for a few hours but, once I got the hang of the architecture and terminology, I fell in love with the thing. I’ll write a post outlining how I constructed the site in EE at a later date, but Veerle’s blog is a good place to browse for tips on EE implementation.

There are still a few tweaks I need to make to the design, and I was thinking of implementing SiFR for the headings and titles - it’s a lot more scalable and accessible than creating a new image for every project I add or update. That said, I needed to get the site up quickly for various reasons, so I’m quite happy with it for now. I’m trying to resist the urge to fiddle some more!

Please feel free to let me know what you think, and if you discover any typos or problems in your particular browser/platform combination – I’d appreciate it!