I found a video on the best do-it-yourself screen exposure box. This is by Roger jennings and he has quite a few more (search google and you tube).

All of this will take time, and I’d like to build it out of nice wood rather than run of the mill oak or maple. I’ve been making a vanity for our downstairs bath out of Jatoba, a Brazillian cherry, which initially at least looks like a rich teak and is a very very dense and hard wood.

I keep reading and learning. Screens need prep in the borders and edges, using gummed packing tape and shellac, varnish, or paint (depending on the book).

Squeegees should be an inch or so wider than the image. For me that means about 22″ wide. Not a Dick Blick item – but I found squeegee material (12′ 70A for $100) and individual 22″ squeegee at about $35 at https://printersedge.com.

What I think I need to do this keeps refining and changing as I read through this. What makes it possible to sort it fairly effectively is I know the impact I want, the size of the images, that they derive from the sunset paintings but aren’t direct photo stenciled – but maybe they do come from that process altered. Thus I can look through paper, screens, squeegees, designs for tables and exposure, and evaluate against that initial 24″ x 30″ painting – probably a 18″ x 22″ print…

More to learn. But this is a much simpler project than an etching press will be.

—spence

We didn’t know that yet (though I was very afraid)
But I did know I loved her.

And I wrote her (in text) then what I write here for you.
Because I find it to be true.

This life you have now,
that’s not all there is.
You will leave this body
behind someday.
You will remain.
And you will still be.
You the being who is my daughter do not die.
I will always love and cherish you, whether I leave this
existence first or you do.

it’s not a win or lose battle against your cancer.
You will still exist and you will still be
loved no matter the outcome.
love, –dad

Let me know when you have read that message
above – that one is important. Love, –dad

Reply: I read it.   

Love you. –dad

Reply: Love you too.

Excellent, that worked much better than the default WordPress image.

(This was Wordbooker and it failed repeatedly)

Doable. Anything in WordPress is doable. But I upgraded the nextgen gallery plugin as it
was revised and somewhere along it stopped behaving as altered.

I recovered those changes. Here’s how you stop image effects and link to a page
from the gallery images…

You do not want the images to use a javascript or lightbox effect when they
are clicked on. Go to Gallery > Options > Effects > Set Javascript Thumbnail Effect to ‘None’

Install the NextGEN Custom Fields plugin, if you haven’t done so already.
Create a new custom field for images called “link”. Custom fields are case-sensitive.

In the custom field put a link to one of your pages, posts, or another site, e.g.
http://spencemunsinger.com/sunset-01.html
I made mine a link to the specific page for each painting in my portfolio.

Populate the field for each of the images in your gallery.

Then you want to edit nextgen-gallery/view/gallery.php. There are two methods, depending
on whether you have shell access to your site or not. I edit the file within the filesystem of
my website, and it’s at /wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/view/gallery.php. I make a copy
and edit it.

The other method is through the plugin editor – Plugins -> Editor, then “Select Plugin to Edit drop
down, select “NextGEN Gallery” and click on “Select”.
Scroll down and find nextgen-gallery/view/gallery.php.

What you want to change is at about line 41:

		<div class="ngg-gallery-thumbnail" >
			<a href="<?php echo $image->imageURL ?>" title="<?php echo $image->description ?>" <?php echo $image->thumbcode ?> >
				<?php if ( !$image->hidden ) { ?>
				<img title="<?php echo $image->alttext ?>" alt="<?php echo $image->alttext ?>" src="<?php echo $image->thumbnailURL ?>" <?php echo $image->size ?> />
				<?php } ?>
			</a>

Change this to:

		<div class="ngg-gallery-thumbnail" >
			<a href="<?php echo $image->ngg_custom_fields["link"]; ?>" title="<?php echo $image->description ?>" <?php echo $image->thumbcode ?> >
				<?php if ( !$image->hidden ) { ?>
				<img title="<?php echo $image->alttext ?>" alt="<?php echo $image->alttext ?>" src="<?php echo $image->thumbnailURL ?>" <?php echo $image->size ?> />
				<?php } ?>
			</a>

You are changing, more specifically,

href="<?php echo $image->imageURL ?>"

to

href="<?php echo $image->ngg_custom_fields["link"]; ?>"

Once I had this working I copied gallery.php up to the parent directory so I can recover
it directly if I upgrade and overwrite it again. Which I will, no question.

—spence

One alternative I seriously thought of persuing was at Craft and Concept. I do have the experience and native inclination for turning a baltic birch roller set… Not to mention, the rails and framework are beautiful to see.

—spence

A lot of fun to see.

In the exhibit some of the prints were exhibited done through several different processes – screenprint next to woodcut, for example. I’m researching presses, screen and etching. If it were as simple as buying a press and trying it out that would be one thing. But I would want to print abstracted sunsets at 24″ x 30″ and that in a new etching press is 5500.00 and up. Not to mention you have to watch what these things weigh – some are “light” at 1250 lbs., a weight savings of half from a less weight-conscious press that comes in at 2650 lbs. Not the thing you throw casually into a second floor studio. Screen presses are easier in the press itself – I can likely build one that will accommodate 24″ x 30″ prints in four colors. I found a design which I can adapt at www.printingplans.com. Most of the for-sale presses for screen are t-shirt and fabric presses.

I also found an elegant solution already executed by Doug Forsythe at buildapress.com. This is very interesting. For a best guess expense of $1200 – $1700 I can likely build a press that would print 26″ x 32″ (my arbitrary dimensions). A press that I am finding would cost 5500.00 to 8500.00 new, and would be able to print exactly what I want to.

I think a simplified abstracted away yet again sunset could be very cool in handmade small editions. Not to mention just straight print art itself.

— spence

It is from a moment on Hendry’s Beach just down from the restaurant, walking down the path toward the sand to photograph a classic sunset in Santa Barbara, and spotting these two surfboards just catching the light and just off the path.

—spence

I was watching rain come in across the ocean.

The light in California is unique. I asked Ethan Karp, a gallery owner in Manhattan – for the sunsets, East Coast gallery or West Coast gallery? Ethan said he could see the light in the paintings as Western, but that might make it more exotic shown on the East Coast… Not an exact quote, but close.

—spence

Lately a post from 1-1/2 weeks ago to twitter stayed as the most recent post on the main site and was superceded by more recent posts on the mobile version…

This is testing Reliable Twitter (for twitter feed) and Twitter Blog.