Crosshair Black Keys 2011 print process

[crosshair]

The Black Keys asked Crosshair to produce the poster for their show July 6th, headlining Milwaukee Summerfest.
Thanks, The Black Keys.

I took a few pics while we printed. Edition of 465, 7 colors.

Here's the film for the first color, complete with Mat Daly's dog's hair.



Here's the paper racked up to acclimate.
The first color is very heavy coverage, getting nearly all of the foreground except for some highlights, as well as the sky.
Part of the reason I did this was, I knew we would have high and changing humidity when we were printing. Getting as much ink down as early as possible minimizes expansion/contraction. There isn't much super-tight registration to this color later on, so I could afford a little growth here to avoid it later.



The first color is a very light blue-gray with a hint of lavender.



Here is the Saturn, ready to roll, with scrap on the table.



First color down.

[crosshair]

Setting up for color #2, a dark gray brown.
This color functions as a universal underbase for the next four colors, all of which have overlay effects. At the end only about 15% of this color still shows through. Still, it has to be just right and it's easy to screw it up. It always looks dark when it goes down, and on a few recent prints I've felt in retrospect that I've made this color too light, which makes it harder to get the right overprint effects from the next layers, and makes the black layer too jarring. This time I made sure it looked 'too dark' in isolation, so the whole will hopefully blend together right.



the pile:



printing.
This color is mostly Raw Umber, with little bits of white, black, and Iron Oxide Yellow.





The first two colors are now done.

[weaponsofmassdesign]

Nice. Is that coated stock?

[crosshair]

Nope, it's Wausau 80# bright white cover.
If it were coated, I wouldn't have worried about sealing the paper with a heavy coat at the beginning.

[NeroInferno]

Show us more.
Fabio

[crosshair]

Color three: brick red.
Mixed from Burnt Sienna, Iron Oxide Yellow, and white.



Three colors done. The red is fairly dark and indistinct now where it overprints the brown, but it ends up making a subtle and important difference in the finished print. This color ended up having a fair amount of coverage considering that this was originally conceived without it, as a six color print.

[zlandrum]

looks great, Dan! I enjoy the process of this, as I oogle over the prints I got from you a while back and wonder how each step is done.

[crosshair]

Color 4: Brick
This one is always hard to get just right, but was a bit easier this time due to the darker underbase brown. Mixed from Iron Oxide Yellow, white, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna, and bits of other things, I can't remember what. And LOTS of transparent base.



Patching a few pinholes in the screen, with clear tape (I never use emulsion.)
This is the color with the most overprint action. Usually in this sort of image it's the light gray, but in this print the gray will have fairly little coverage.



Printing.


Four colors down.

[SkatRadioh]

Yeah Dan! Too awesome, thanks for sharing this with us. I still need to see this stuff in person some day. Overprinting skill.

[Yamar]

people usually dream of silkscreening photographic style work. he makes it look easy. - another ebeaner

It is one of the most skillfully created screen prints I have ever seen and definitely the best I own. - and another

It's all relative Dan, but if it motivated you to make this process thread, I guess I'll take it. Love seeing your stuff in creation, although I still need to get my piece of yours from last year up and on the wall...