- Title
- Documentary segment about Peaceable Kingdom
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- Creator
- Swanson, John August, 1938-2021
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- Date
- 1994
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- Description
- Interview with John August Swanson and James Butterfield II at Aurora Serigraphics Studio. This video begins with color mixing and testing. All of the colors printed on John August Swanson's serigraphs are transparent, because they are oil and acrylic paints which have been thinned to the point where they are able to pass through a fine mesh screen. However, they are not all thinned with the same amount of varnish to paint, and all of the colors have varying degrees of opacity. Sometimes colors are even printed multiple times to make them standout more or less in the final image. Mr. Swanson shows other colors and stencils used to make the artwork, as well as the silk-screen press and the printing of a color.
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- Format Extent
- 1 color video; 00:22:38
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- Subject
- Christianity and Art--United States; Catholic Church--In art; Bible--History of Biblical events--art; Mexican American Art; Mexican American Artists; Los Angeles--California
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- Type
- ["Moving image"]
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- Work
- ["Peaceable Kingdom, 1994"]
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- Thematic Collection
- ["Biblical"]
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- Work Type
- Figurative; Pattern; Modern; Contemporary; Religious; Biblical; Art
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- State Edition
- ["Video"]
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- Works Referenced
- ["Isaiah 11:1-9"]
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- Style Period
- ["20th Century"]
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- Agent
- Printed and published by the artist, John August Swanson.
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Documentary segment about Peaceable Kingdom
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00:00:10.610 - 00:00:37.050
transparency. Yeah, that's the colors will be coming through. That's the good thing about it. I have a feeling I almost need to go with more color that I'm a little worried that it's not gonna read enough. I put so much information on it. I hate to
00:00:37.060 - 00:01:03.910
lose it without with such a, it looks beautiful there, but I don't think that's, I don't know if that's gonna print like that, it looks like it might, it might be that's a lot thicker application. Should we throw in a brown or this wouldn't throw this?
00:01:05.590 - 00:01:45.070
Maybe I better take it back. I like that color. Try it on, on, on this animal right here. Yeah, I think that's a good step. Yeah, that's great. So is that the color that you're going to go with john is that
00:01:45.070 - 00:02:03.070
what you Yeah, it looks it's a good step because it's like an interim step because we're going to print other darker browns too. So this will help it. Let's try some up on the trees up there. How do you, what gym do you think that would
00:02:03.070 - 00:02:33.600
be a good, you like strong enough to change a lot of colors, but it's also very transparent. And are you going to be using transparent colors throughout? We use opaque and transparent. We overlay. We print an opaque color then we'll go over it with a transparent
00:02:33.600 - 00:02:52.960
color so we'll keep pushing and pulling, it's a matter of playing and getting until we get the right results. But I don't think you have uh, I can't use a formula because we're creating it as we go along. We're referring to the original opinion, but we're
00:02:52.970 - 00:03:12.020
making alterations. So but I think this this is a good step, it's not too dark and it's not too too light. And so it'll give us like a middle range. So we come in with darker colors, we can still see colors underneath. And the way the
00:03:12.020 - 00:03:30.410
stencil is, it leaves a lot of the other colors coming through. This will be your first neutral color. That will be great balance to the work because that's right. He's what he says is we've been using the primary colors. So this will be the first neutral
00:03:30.410 - 00:03:48.910
color that will have used on the print and and the primary colors. What are the primary colors? Well, the magenta was one of the colors and the transparent blue was another color and then this brilliant yellow was another one of them. And then this, this blue
00:03:48.910 - 00:04:12.270
right here. This was a separate blue from this blue the night. So now that you've arrived at your choice of color, what will the next step be to prepare the screen and start printing? Are you ready for that, john is everything set to uh be put
00:04:12.270 - 00:04:28.860
on the screen? Yeah, we're gonna do some touch ups on it. And then we'll be uh it'll be ready but we'll have to do a little bit of physical touch up on the screen to block out areas that are too open and that will be that
00:04:28.860 - 00:04:47.750
what we can do. That will be our next project. Okay then I'll clean up the mess that I made here. We're looking at color number seven on john Swanson's print, The Peaceable Kingdom. This was the color that we saw john mixing on june 14th. The date
00:04:47.750 - 00:05:03.410
is now august 18th and there's been considerable work done on this print. In fact, John and Jim have brought the print up to 24 colors and we're going to see a little bit later what that looks like. John is over at his drafting table. I'm going
00:05:03.410 - 00:05:20.440
to ask him to come over and talk about this for a few minutes, john, I'm gonna bring my drafting table here so I can work while you're talking with me. Sure, I'll put it over here. I'm working on the next one of the stencils. Yeah, this
00:05:20.440 - 00:05:40.660
was number seven and it was a transparent ground and uh we're getting these wonderful colors by mixing, squeezing oil paints into the base, the silkscreen base and the uh, and we're getting transparent colors so that we can keep printing over other colors. And then the work
00:05:40.660 - 00:06:01.570
underneath will show. So this week we've created with using toothbrush batter. I was able to get like a soft edge and it's helping to shape. And these early stencils I think I mentioned earlier were are very carefully done and we may have worked 5 to 6
00:06:01.570 - 00:06:20.110
to seven days on each stem cell to prepare them. And so that when we printed there's lots of information and so that it's the forming of the basic looks real complete. Can we take a look at the colors that came before this brown color that we're
00:06:20.110 - 00:06:43.900
looking at now? Yes sir. This was a this was and this was number two. Number two. The first color was a basic white. It was a flat white so that we could build up our colors on top of a printed rather than on the paper which
00:06:43.900 - 00:07:07.570
would absorb the colors it gave a base so that the colors more firmly on the paper. And then this was followed by the third color was a silver. We wanted a metallic color as in many areas, some of it's been obscured by now but I wanted
00:07:07.570 - 00:07:25.140
it especially on the peacock so there would be on your desk but it's on many other colors but most of these have been covered. So it's got transparent colors on top of it and it's going to, it will only show up as a near distance. But
00:07:25.150 - 00:07:46.370
this is a silver silver printing of silver metallic ink. And then And then the 4th color was a transparent blue and you can see how much work was done on it because I used it to darken areas. I used it to where the greens would be
00:07:46.380 - 00:08:03.410
uh and also parts of the sky to create more of a a depth in the sky. But I shaped a lot of the trees and that stencil has a lot of detail in it. How long did it take you to do that? This would have probably
00:08:03.410 - 00:08:28.410
been over a week. Over a week. But in a way it was important because it gave us a definition to build other colors on. And that color was followed by the transparent yellow which went on top of some of the blue to create green because it
00:08:28.410 - 00:08:50.510
was transparent. We were able to get very you know a range of color because some of its like lines, some of its batter some of its tiny dots and so it went over the reds to help in the building of the browns and also on just
00:08:50.520 - 00:09:13.780
as as part of the base colors. Anyway so this this was also very complex. Also we've got our moon already there and then the last color right before that brown was a sky was a night sky. And what we printed. But what we printed was the
00:09:13.780 - 00:09:35.060
blue but I had scraped out the dots of the stars. And so what we've got is we printed the background blue but allowing some areas to be open. So the white from underneath which showed through his stars. But that was like one of many printings of
00:09:35.070 - 00:09:58.990
color on the sky because the sky were really developing. So it has illustrious uh quality like a You know that has like a beautiful depth to it yet now is colour 18 with the India ink on mylar placed over the color. Yeah. This is my drawing
00:09:59.000 - 00:10:18.540
on Mylar. And then uh and we were we made a blend with this color and I'm gonna remove this so you can see how we printed this. I do on top of the smiler. And now what came out this This is the printing of it and
00:10:18.550 - 00:10:39.850
it's a color called. And as we went up higher to the top we it became more light color with more transparent but down here it was more um darker color. And what I was trying to do is define the plants more carefully and put more grasses
00:10:39.850 - 00:11:02.080
and leaves so that the each area became richer and richer and it looks it's it's in in fact an exact duplicate of the artwork. Yeah. It's it's been transferred photographically. What I drew was transferred photographically to create a a stencil for the printing of the ink.
00:11:02.090 - 00:11:22.000
And I chose the ink. Is this kind of green. And you have you have some other examples of the of the artwork over there. I think. What number is this one? This is the drawing on Mylar that I did for color number 20. And the color
00:11:22.000 - 00:11:40.050
that I chose was a raw number and it was a transparent color so that it would go over other areas and help to change the cast and the the sense of the color by giving more shading and this was more of a neutral color that embellished
00:11:40.050 - 00:11:59.860
the colors underneath. You can see how I've used it to create the fur and the hair of the animals. So, and also it darkened areas that were I felt were too light and gave more shaping. I'm going to remove it now so you can see this
00:11:59.860 - 00:12:25.920
is my drawing on my large and then, yeah, this is the color that we printed. You can see how I've shaped the figures of the the monkeys and the squirrels and the horses and the lion raccoon. But on this one, I blocked areas out and then
00:12:25.920 - 00:12:52.240
use toothbrush spattering to create this kind of stippling spattering effect. And what it does is it's a softer and more random and it gives it less of a feeling of being too mechanical like and it gives it gives a variety of textures so they're not all
00:12:52.900 - 00:13:19.960
the same. But this is this helped to print a lot. And it also helped that little boy had helped to shape his face and also finding it also helped this bowl. And currently you're working on colour number 25. This you can come up close if you
00:13:19.960 - 00:13:39.000
want to look at. This is a the drawing that I made for and I wanted to use a beautiful green that's like a golden uh olive green. And you can see I'm using it more like a tone or two tone places that we've already drawn like
00:13:39.000 - 00:13:58.750
I've got on these trees and on the mountains and on these trees here and around the animals so that it makes it punches the the animals out and embellished. It's going over some bright yellows and other greens to help modify them. And here is the color
00:13:58.750 - 00:14:19.210
that we'll be using that color green. Yeah, we're well we've got it ready but we're gonna print possibly tomorrow. You can see how I punched these these other colors. What I've used it as a way to to separate the green so that there'll be more varieties
00:14:19.210 - 00:14:36.530
of colors because it's transparent. So it will be going over some that are more blue, some that are more neutral green And it gives more variety because as I've worked by using lines and drawings and decorations, the other colors are showing through. And so it gives
00:14:36.530 - 00:14:56.590
more of a spectrum of color. When we last looked at John Swanson's print. The peaceable kingdom. It was on August 16 Today it's September 27 and several colors have been added as you can see currently, master printer, Jim Butterfield is preparing the screen for printing of
00:14:56.590 - 00:15:44.190
the next color which is a turquoise that will cover part of the mountainous area at the top. So let me ask you john, how about how many colors have you put on since the middle of last month? This is colour 41.
00:15:44.680 - 00:16:05.060
So we printed I can't tell you how many But is this color 41 now and this is a turquoise, correct. It's a very pale turquoise. We printed other turquoise is but this is a very pale one with white and more light and it's going to cover
00:16:05.060 - 00:16:25.140
the top of the mountains also, it's covering some of the trees. It's almost like a highlight on some of the trees and it's it's giving punctuating the darker areas with some bright light spots. But we're going to the first part of this operation jim is cleaning
00:16:25.140 - 00:16:44.390
the screen and opening it up because it's there's many fine details. So he keeps it open, he has to clean it every um every so many prints every you know, we have to keep checking to make sure that there's nothing blocking the printing process. Then once
00:16:44.400 - 00:17:06.560
he's got that ready, then he starts printing on this blank pieces of paper or scrap paper in order to see that it's that it's opened up. Then we'll go to the then well then we start to print on the silk screen, the actual paragraph to make
00:17:06.560 - 00:17:28.060
sure that and then we have to make sure that initial alignment is good. And also see how the color, there's this part of it is the most the part that takes the most concentration right now to make sure everything's working in in alignment, alignment and color.
00:17:28.070 - 00:17:48.390
So in the next few minutes we'll be checking carefully see now she's putting in the circa sandy putting the circle in and we'll see how the alignment is and how the color works on this is this will be yeah. Check to see if you have to
00:17:48.390 - 00:18:24.940
make some adjustments on see it sitting in a lot of the writer areas and it's going over the mountain and some stars and there's some stars. All right. And for checking putting the price of the artwork right in their laps in order to make sure
00:18:24.940 - 00:18:43.650
that we put the alignment is consistent, but there's never any, but you can see where we put it there and then it's going on to these leagues and it's going on the peacocks and it's punctuating these little areas and making some nice bright spots and it's
00:18:43.650 - 00:19:08.020
going on some of the wherever there's blue we've added in. Okay. Looks like the one this one mountain. Okay. What we might do is almost not think about it too much if it's so wonderful, but it seems to be the most problem. How do you like
00:19:08.030 - 00:19:30.470
the color color? I'm not sure whether it should be lighter on the top or whether we should leave it like that. You know, whether we should do a blend except I don't know if he'd have enough to do it again. You know, it'd be more pale.
00:19:32.340 - 00:20:25.930
How do you feel? Maybe it's okay like this. Yeah, I like the color. It's fitting. I think it seems to be fitting. How about how about this? It's that weird springing right on those little flowers. I think that looks good. And do
00:20:25.930 - 00:20:45.980
you think we'll have trouble with the drying in jim? Do you want to put more gel on it? Okay. That that will bring it out even a little bit more. I think it really looks beautiful on the on that bush. It makes the tree kind of
00:20:45.980 - 00:21:13.070
shimmer a lot. That turquoise is a nice color. We've we've got the color mixed. We lighten it up a little bit. Jim is doing some fine tuning. And so much of what goes on at the beginning is fine tuning. How about those seeds? The tree where
00:21:13.070 - 00:22:32.040
the monkeys? Yeah, that's a beautiful tree. Oh, what a mess. I think probably, yes. It's really making it more completely. That's a lot of they don't have sex stars. Okay, that's ready.