New Riso subscription print and big news! (Patreon)

Before I get to the business of this post I have to share some really big news with you! Last week I signed a lease on a studio space that’s perfect for Riso printing, working and shipping! I’m using the income from Patreon to pay rent and I am so incredibly grateful for your support in making this studio a reality. This space is the next solid step in sustaining my Riso business longterm! I can’t go back now, baby!

Real talk: I would like to never take a full time job again. I guess I’m not closing that door completely, but I am refocusing in a more concrete way so I can be prepared to say no to full time jobs or freelance work that doesn’t suit my interests in the future. I’ve loved my time working on an animated TV show, it was a cool show and I had a great team, but I was mourning my personal work everyday. I’ve been building my personal creative business for so long, I don’t want to abandon or neglect it for a long period again. I feel like every few months I have to refocus and reconsider again why I decided on a career in art to begin with- and it’s usually fueled by a lifestyle choice plus a love for experimentation, sharing and feeling deeply about the act of creating. I usually can’t have these things when I’m working for others, so I need to refocus to make sure I’m on track with why I chose this as my life’s direction in the first place.

On top of everything, last year my parents and my brother were laid off from their airline jobs and I felt pressure to have and keep that full time job so I knew I wouldn’t be a burden to them or could possibly help them financially in a pinch. Now that things are feeling up again and they’re all back to work I feel confident taking a big personal risk in getting a studio. I couldn’t take this risk without your help on Patreon, (from both active and former patrons, of course) so thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can’t wait to share more about the studio with you!!!! I’m so excited!!! Here’s a little pic of one side of the wall- it’s so big! Perfect for workshops and riso events!!

I might be able to buy a new MZ Riso as well. I’ve been pining after an MZ, or any 2 drum machine, for a while now and it looks like getting one is finally possible! It will be SO much easier to print with a two drum machine- in both registration and minimizing roller marks, which means I’ll be able to print with several colors more easily, especially my favorite faux CMYK 3-color combo (tri-color)! That means that I’ll could ramp up my Riso business more than I ever could have at home with a single drum machine. I’m also considering doing workshops and gallery shows now that I have this space! It opens up a world of opportunities suddenly that I haven’t fully been able to consider at home. I would love to meet up with patrons sometime in the studio! Possibly to a dedicated Riso subscription Patron session to show you how I print your subscription prints??? Let me know what kind of events you might be interested in?? I could even do them virtually and in person! Maybe some kind of zoom event??

I’m sharing a portion of the studio space with my assistant who’s been helping me ship prints lately (he’s a DJ and record distributor too so that’s cool!! Good music, good times ahead) so he can help me with my shipping and organization while at the studio in exchange for some work and storage space. Here’s a little plan I made of the studio! I’ve always been obsessed with planning out a space before I move in with exact measurements (Sims obsessed *cough cough*), I know things will change once we’re in the space but I’m excited to start with this layout. Knobs means like coat rack knobs!! My boyfriend made fun of me endlessly for just writing knobs hahaha. Also yoga zone is pretty funny too but ya girl’s got a bad back! I have to stretch every 20 mins or else I’m bed/couch-ridden for days. It can also double as a dancing zone!

So! Back to the new print I just made!

I’m all finished with February’s Risograph print and finished coloring March’s so that’s around the corner too. This print will be ready to ship later this week- I have to let the individual colors dry a bit before I ship this one. If you’re part of the Risograph print subscription keep a lookout for your print later next week or the following week. Don’t forget to update your address if you’ve moved since February!!

I printed 400 prints of the blue last week to let the blue dry a bit before I lay on the pink and yellow. It’s most important to let the blue dry a bit first, even if it won’t ever fully dry. I like the color layering of blue-pink-yellow best because I want my line art to stand out and I don’t usually like how warm yellow printed first comes out. I could lower the opacity of the yellow if I print it first but then I miss out on some of those wonderful lime green colors and it’s frustrating! If you can tell, the test print has the machine roller marks across the image, which isn’t ideal. I’m letting the colors dry a bit so the roller marks don’t pick up the ink as easily as when I print all three colors within an hour, although the roller marks do still happen, even when I let the prints dry, it’s just not so bad. I print 400 (so many!!) at the beginning because I usually lose about 100 prints to poor registration or marks, then I have about 115 patrons to send the print out to, and that leaves about 200 left to sell until I have to reprint (but usually I just don’t want to reprint).

This image ended up being MUCh easier to color than January’s print because I didn’t have so many elements and values to figure out. I knew I wanted the main woman/mother’s hair to be hot pink (100% pink and 25% yellow for a slight orange tint but mostly to electrify the pink) and I wanted to play with the pink against that lime green. I got some really nice pinks and greens in the Oath print I did last year and kept looking at it for inspiration for this print. The main character in The Oath print also has pink hair and the cliffs behind her are lime green (100% yellow and 25% blue) and I’ve been wanting to revisit those colors ever since I made it.

I actually ended up liking the first version of this print the best, which I decided after I did another pass with more contrasting values. I ended up liking how soft the values in the first print were next to the second contrasted one, so I pulled up my first master files and remade my masters to what they were originally. Being happy with the colors and values right away is so rare for me and I feel like this is an exciting new step in how confident I feel with this Riso. I know now that I always have to print double pink (duplicate my original pink layer when I print), duplicate my line layer a few times for a rich, thick blue line and always wait 5 prints after starting the Riso for the registration and ink to match up with what I’ve programmed it to do (dense ink setting and it takes a few prints (always on interval) to get the milimeters right).

So i colored it while thinking about what would look good next to the pink and green and what could play off of touching values and colors. I’m mostly looking at values of each object and how to make each piece stand out without being as loud as my main focal point or be subtle without getting lost in the image. When I was in school I learned an earwig ‘dark thing on a light thing’ to mean make sure values pop next to each other. I think about that every time I make work, I hope it can help you too.

Here are the values of each ink image: blue, pink and yellow. Again, I get these three images by adding three groups in photoshop- one for each ink color. Then inside of each group multiple different opacity layers- one for 25, 50, 75 and 100% opacity, all set to multiply.

I paint inside each layer with only the ink color that corresponds with the group. When I’m finished I turn the ‘lightness’ down on each layer to change it to black and white. I turn on only each ink layer at a time (ie only blue layer, then turn off and make visible only pink layer) and save those value maps as a JPEG each.

I send each JPEG to the machine individually for each corresponding ink! The Riso reads only black and white/negative and positive space images and makes a stencil or screen (like screen printing!) on the drum. All the negative/black space is where the ink goes through, all the white/positive space is where no ink will pass. Riso works best when layered so I print each color one at a time and they combine beautifully on the paper!

Thanks so much for reading! Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

Xoxo,

Natalie