'Desert Dreams' and 'Three Color Riso Swatch' - April's Riso Subscription Prints! (Patreon)

Hello everyone! This month's Riso Subscription prints are all finished and finally ready to be sent out! Keep an eye out for a shipping notification from my shop's email and expect the packages sometime next week for domestic packages and within the next month or so for international tiers. If you paid on April 1st you'll be receiving these two prints. 

Also this month is my first time debuting a new tier, a $35 tier where I'll send out everything I printed during the month!! I printed three new prints in April, the re-workings of the 'Super Women' Riso prints of Diana, Leia, Ripley! I hadn't been able to print them with the original colors, so I had to change the file from a 4 color print (blue, green, yellow + pink) to just a three color print (blue, yellow, pink). These transitions have been tricky but I'm also thrilled to have these prints back in stock again! Anyway, those are going out to some folks along with the two prints they'd normally get with the package.

Desert Dreams - 3 Color Riso print in Blue, Fluorescent Orange and Yellow!

This print has been long in the making and I'm so happy with how it turned out! I love the sense of adventure and the little critters surrounding her, inviting her into their home. Even though they seem a bit less mischievous than the critters in the Island Dreams companion piece, they're still clearly up to no good...especially those baby owls haha.

The gradients for this one were particularly difficult to figure out. I really fought the orange on this print, on multiple levels. First, my orange drum is having *issues* with making masters and putting large creases through the middle of masters (screens like in screen printing for those new to Riso), so that's fun. My light absorber strip (which catches the master at the end of the drum and absorbs any light from the master burning process AKA strip that makes the masters look normal) is cracked and broken, so I asked around with friends for some solutions who suggested I temporarily fix it with black masking tape, so I did, only to have the problem surface again after a few days. Uhg! So I've been having to remake the master for the orange drum over and over again until the master is actually smooth or the crease in the master is off to one side and not effecting anything in my image. So I battled Riso's actual parts this time, not just it's general inability to recreate values perfectly based on my digital color mock ups. Also the orange generally comes out much lighter than I expect it so I think I had to triple the orange layers on this one to make them come out the way I made my color mock up.

The gradient in the sky was such a tough value to figure out, it kept being too dark or weirdly orange with the yellow+orange added to it. I thought it would make a nice purple but instead it was a little too brown for what I was looking for in the sky. I had to tweak it several times to get that nice dusk feeling, just before the sun completely sets behind the mountains. I also wanted the clouds to be orange, just like the clouds are green in the Island Dreams print, to give them that sunset feel as well.

The squiggly branches at the top of this piece are dried, dead cactus stalk by the way! I have a bunch of them at home, I love the way they look!! Here's a photo of one of my favorites.

Simplifying the Joshua Trees was also a challenge, I really wanted to keep them fluffy and wild while making sure my blue line art wasn't overbearing. Oh I love the image below because you can really see how Riso creates tiny little dots to make each master! It's especially visible in the gradient in the sky. the closer and denser the dots the more color is visible!

I really wanted to add these little steps to the print because they were built and maintained nicely on my hike with friends when I was in Yucca Valley last!

I wanted to add lots of extra value with my line art rather than several tones in each piece, like I do with my digital color. I tend to color my pieces very sparingly for Riso, while my digital work is much more complicated with color. I like to let Riso do it's thing, the more I add the more muddy I think it feels. So instead I like to create depth with the line art.

little spider/tarantula :3 and of course I had to add a few poppies!

This month's mini print has that orange blue gradient in the sky, but I liked that it was separated by the dead cactus so I kept it! I made the white type by making a while layer on top of all my other layers that would affect everything below it.

Here's the Riso breakdown for this piece! I've attached it below as well so you can see it larger! Basically gives a simple run down of how I set up my files for print. If you'd like to listen to me explain it further and get a better sense of how I'm making decisions for Riso on the fly, you can also sign up for my Riso workshop class! But this should do the trick ^_^