22nd April, 2008

Today we finally started the screen printing process for our log book covers. The whole morning was spent in preparing the screen and coating it with emulsion. We start with printing and painting the cloth from tomorrow.
Meanwhile, we spoke to our faculty Ramesh. Earlier we were targeting our signage to the general public. We were going to design signs like 'no urinating', 'no spitting', 'no smoking', 'no eatables' ' rest rooms' and so on. Ramesh suggested that we change are target to the 'higher end' of society since it is they who are not as much in contact with street art. So, now we are designing signage for a hotel, which could have this kind of a signage. It will be interesting to see what will be the reaction or result to this kind of art form in a 'sophisticated' environment.
As students, we wanted to do everything on our own, from ideating, conceptualizing, to executing it. We planned to figure out the style, observe it, and illustrate it in the form of a range of products. If we were, say, practitioners, it would be us conceptualizing and analysing, not actually sitting and doing things by ourselves. We would have instead, formed a society of these painters and asked them to illustrate instead since it is difficult for us to learn their techiniques in a short span of time, and it will benefit them, in terms of earning and employment.
Today we were asked to ask the street artists to illustrate for products instead of us. It is a valid point but somehow, we cannot bring ourselves to do it! We don't have the money to pay the artists and it would just feel as if we have done nothing for this 2 week project. Therefore, we have decided to give only one product to these artists to paint. We will be doing so shortly.