Whoops! & logs

week #8 entry #2 04/05-04/12: personal journal

(source: here)

The amount of progress driftwear has made in the last two weeks is remarkable.  This past weekend, my focus has been the driftwear photo shoot.  I spent the prior week creating silk-screens and printing shirts.  I thought I had my whole week planned so well until something went terribly wrong…

Over break I had created the driftwear t-shirt designs to print.  I initially wanted to create five shirts, however I decided because of time restraints I would only create three.  I wanted three different shirts that I really loved so that it would be easy for me to sell them.  As I learned during my first semester project, it is hard to sell something you don’t love and believe in.  Thus, I picked my three favorite shirts that were most well liked from the public and printed the designs on transparencies.  Monday, I set a time with my dean and teacher Mr. Emery so that he could help me through the silk-screen process.  He had some emulsion that we coated the screens with and we waited for the emulsion to dry until Wednesday afternoon.  By Wednesday the screens had dried in the dark and we were ready to place the transparencies over the coated screens and to make the screens.  But something went wrong.  After the screens had sat under the light for seven minutes, the emulsion wouldn’t wash out of the designs. 

Mr. Emery scrubbed vigorously at the designs with no luck, he finally created a big blob of uncoated screen where my design was.  I was so frustrated.  I didn’t know what had gone wrong with my screen.  We did everything right.  Mr. Emery and I came up with a few theories on why the screens did not work. A) Someone opened the dark cabinet where the transparencies were placed; subjecting the light-sensitive emulsion to light B) the emulsion was old and did not work properly anymore. And C) My printed did not print out the transparencies in dark enough black ink.

Aggravated, I washed the emulsion out of the screens and went home.  Mr. Emery promised me that he would help recoat the screens and that I could re-try making the screens Thursday.  When I came in Thursday, I arrived in the art room with a blessing.  My three designs had been transformed into screens thanks to Mr. Emery.  I started printing screens that day and worked over Friday with help from Royce, Allison, and Mr. Emery to print twenty shirts.  With their help I got all the shirts printed that I needed for the Friday/Saturday driftwear photo shoot.  Everything worked out!  I am so lucky to have the help and support of so many FOCUS students and my art teachers.

Friday and Saturday were so much fun.  Harrison Co, a talented photographer peer of mine, agreed to be the photographer for my photo shoot.  (Check out his Flickr!)  I asked 15 DE students to be models and many of them eagerly agreed. Friday, I drove two models that couldn’t make the Saturday shoot to the Englewood boat basin with Harrison.  I briefly styled the girls and we found a few beautiful locations to shoot as the sun lit up the George Washington Bridge.  I was surprised to see that it took two hours to shoot only two girls, but the photographs turned out brilliantly.  Saturday, Harrison and I came back with 12 more models.  Royce G., a focus peer of mine, stylized each model.  Royce and I had talked the week before about inspiration for the shoot and what vibe I wanted to convey.  David V., another focus student working on public service announcements, came to the shoot as well.  David had dreamed up and awesome idea for a brand video for driftwear and I put him in charge of directing the brand video.  He worked with models who weren’t shooting to get some footage.  After a little over six hours, the shoot came to a close.  It was so much fun to work with fellow students and to get more DE students involved in driftwear.  Photos of that to come!

driftwear opens April 19th!

Over break logs:
3/30: 3 hours; drawing logos and getting feedback
4/1: 2 hours; making brand video
4/2: 5 hours; drawing designs, scanning them, making brand video
4/3: 4 hours; work on brand video, draw new logo, e-mailed cults, band
4/4: 4.5 hours; editing video, uploading icons, video, and bios on vimeo & youtube,  worked on mission statement, edited blogger logo, updated flickr, made vimeo account,

Week Eight

Senior Focus Field Work Log Dates: April 5th-April 12th

Name: Isabella Whitney

Monday: 5.5 hours; invited friends to drift group, mission statement, coated screens with emulsion for silkscreens, edited website, hung up boats, photographed boats,
Tuesday: 2 hours, uploaded photos from The Paper Boat Project, printed designs on transparencies,
Wednesday: 2 hours, coated silk-screens, e-mailed faculty about boat project,
Thursday: 4 hours; practiced silk-screening on newsprint, decided on hairstyles for models and printed inspiration for photo-shoot, printed first shirt, wrote journal entry, updated flickr with pictures from today's silk-screening, edited photos,
Friday: 5 hours; silk-screening shirts, shot two models, sending Chris a package,
Saturday: 7 hours; photoshoot, ironing shirts, getting props together, styling models, packing up, driving to boat basin,
Sunday: 1.5 hours; journal entry & planning for next week, updated quickbooks,