January's Risograph Prints (Patreon)

Happy New Year!

This month I’m doing something a little different. I’m sending two full sized prints to my Riso subscription patrons! One is a fantasy print and the other is a birthstones print, that I was inspired to make after drawing some gems in the fantasy girl print! 

Both prints were made by layering 4 Risograph inks: blue, fluorescent pink, gold and yellow, in that order. Sometimes the gold was a little spotty on the prints but that’s what happens when you send literal metal ink through a rice paper screen! The metal rips up the screen so I had to make a new master on the gold drum about every 30 prints, it was nuts. 

The fantasy print was inspired by a mishmash of several things in my life right now that just all came together to make a little scene that I hope everyone can interpret differently. I wanted a very classical scene where king is being given their crown, or a princess is knighting a soldier…but I decided, instead of a king, maybe it’s a little demon who’s being crowned, given by some vagrant whom you’d assume couldn’t possess such power? Maybe this vagrant or Aragorn-like ranger sees this demon as someone more worthy of their crown. Maybe this demon was heir to the throne all along, but never knew it, and needed to go on an adventure with the ranger to find out. Those are some of my favorite stories, but how do you interpret it? 

I really played around with gradients in the vines of this piece. I couldn’t get the colors right until I used a dark blue, light pink and light green at the bottom of the print to ground the piece. I really like that purple gradient turning into the brownish greens. I’ve been adding vines to everything lately, I’m totally addicted! I can already see it morphing into something else, more intertwining, which feels like a relief (I’m bound to the vine!?!) and I can’t wait to get on to the next print. The stars were originally meant to be that orangey-pink like the circular flowers but I changed them to gold ink when I remembered it was an option at the Risolab! I was in New York for the Society of Illustrator’s show earlier this month so I popped into the Risolab to do these prints and a bunch of reprints I’d been meaning to do before I left New York but never had the time for. I still haven’t looked into a printer here in LA but I’m hoping to reach out to Print Shop LA soon, they seem really nice! I’m also still planning to get my own machine…but…might be finding a studio space in LA to set up in so I’m waiting for more details until I buy a machine. Once it’s in my house it won’t be leaving for a long time so I want to make sure this isn’t a possibility first! 

The birthstones print is meant to be a little birthday reminder for your friends and family’s birthdays! Each stone is correlated with a month, by their initials above the stones. Write a name and date on the lines below the stones. Sorry there are only two lines! Maybe you can fit more names in there if your handwriting is ittybitty. I really like the value changes in each stone and find them super satisfying, especially the stepped gradient of the blue sapphire. There’s a tiny little bit of pink in there too. I think the pearl came out really interesting and more dynamic as a ‘white’ tone and I really love the yellow of the citrine. Can’t wait to use this gemstones chart as a color guide for my future work.