Stencils, Spray paint, and the Challenges of Large Sticky Surfaces

So far I have only transformed one of my designs into a spray paint stencil.  But it actually isn't too difficult.

First you have to choose a design and decide how large you want the stencil to be.  Since I only had access to a regular printer I designed my stencil to be divided into printer paper size sections (8."5x11").  This way I could enlarge the image, print it on multiple pages, and then tape all the pages together for the final stencil.  For this stencil I divided the image into six panels, then I taped them together along the seems.  I then covered the entire stencil with clear contact paper to make the stencil stronger so that it wouldn't rip when it was painted.  The total size of this stencil came out to be 17"x33".

When making the stencil, you need to consider how many different colors you want to use.  For each color you will need to cut a different stencil layer, except for the background which can be sprayed on as a solid coat over the entire canvas.  For this particular stencil, I cut two stencil layers, one for the white and one for the black.  To cut out the stencils I used an exacto knife to get clean edges and remove complex shapes.  For the white stencil, I cut out the basic outline of the entire girl.  So it was just a silhouette without any of the internal detail.  For the black stencil, I cut out all the black areas but left the white areas uncut.  One thing that you must take into account when creating the initial stencil is that you cannot have any white areas that are completely surrounded by black areas, otherwise the entire area will be cut out and be painted black when you spray the stencil.

Print of black layer only

Another thing you should be aware of when buying spray paint is that you must be over 18.  While I am old enough to legally buy spray paint, every time I get more I end up getting carded.  I tried both Krylon and Rustolium paint, and so far I like the Rustolium spray paint a lot better.  The Krylon paint is extremely watery and has a much greater tendency to run everywhere.  This might be due to my poor spray painting technique, but I have had better luck with the Rustolium.  These are both fairly cheap spray paint brands, but they are nice because they can be found at a local hardware store or Walmart.  I am new to spray painting, so I have not yet looked into better quality paints.

To create the final piece I first sprayed the entire canvas with red paint.  I tried to do this evenly, not holding the spray paint too close to the canvas, but it was tricky since I was spray painting outside and the wind would catch the paint if I was too far away from the canvas (this was a problem because my housemate warned me that if I accidentally got paint on his house I would be in trouble :P).

Also, be sure to lay down paper or plastic under the canvas because grass and little bits of debris can become stuck to the wet spray paint.  Once you paint the canvas bring it inside immediately so that it can dry.  Although the paint dried fairly quickly on the brown paper, it dries much slower on the canvas.  For my first print I attempted to spray the three stencils leaving only ten minutes drying time.  This did not work out very well and I ended up pulling up some of the previously sprayed areas when I tried to remove the stencil.  For my second attempt I let the paint dry for about a day in between layers and I didn't have problem with the stencils sticking or damaging the previously painted layers.

Since the canvas is 24"x36" the stencil did not cover the entire canvas.  The problem with this is that the overspray would get on any uncovered area.  Spray paint goes EVERYWHERE!!!  To fix this be sure to cover all area of canvas that you do not when colored. 

One thing that I like about the spray painted version of my designs is that they never come out exactly the same.  For example, the stencils don't line up exactly the same or I over spray too much black or white in different areas creating a unique look even though I'm using the same stencil.  Although I do like the clean lines and boarders generated in photoshop, there is something nice about the imperfections as well.

Darwin Day Submission

Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in its habits.
~Charles Darwin

After much prodding, I transformed my human evolution design into a piece that I could submit for the Darwin Day T-shirt competition.  Here is the final design I decided to submit.

As you can see, the design is centered around my original human evolutionary tree concept, but I added the text and the outlines of extant primates.  The three additional taxa of primates include Pan (lower left), Gorilla (lower right), and Pongo (upper left), since these genera are mostly closely related to Homo out of the primates living today.  I decided to remove the arm with the apple because I didn't think a disembodied arm would work well on a t-shirt, without an edge to line up with.  

 

Instead I added a finch perched on the girl's outstretched hand.  If you are familiar with Darwin you will recognize the finch as a one of the species of Darwin's finches that had developed a large wide beak in order to specialize on tougher food sources that finches with long narrow beaks could not easily consume.  Finches with narrow beaks specialized in feeding on different resources, allowing the different morphs to exploit different niches rather than directly competing for the same limited resources.  Over time, initial variation in beak dimensions was enhanced, since different shapes provided different advantages allowing some birds to access resources that the others could not.  Thus they didn't starve and were able to reproduce and pass their genes onto the next generation.  Anyway, I digress, basically the finch is an homage to Darwin as well a representation of a possible mechanism of change.

 

I wasn't sure if I should draw the lettering or use a font.  Also, I realized that since Darwin Day isn't until February the actual year would be 2012 (oops) so I fixed that in my final design.  Here are the original design layouts with the girl, the text, the arm and the bird.

 

Originally, I had just thought I would use my design with the girl and text on a red background, but the t-shirt had to be white so that limited the background color.  Since I didn't want to just put the girl in a square of color I tried to add color to surround the outline in by containing it in the shapes of the other primates.  I didn't like the first design because I didn't think the ape was distinct enough, so I removed that image and changed to the large ape on the right of the girl.  I then added the small ape on the left bottom and finally re-added the one at the top left.  I was trying to use the apes to make the girl stand out more so I had a difficult time laying them out to minimize the area of the girl bordered by white while simultaneously positioning them to look like they looked like they belonged in the image.  Amusingly, all of the background primates are based on pictures of chimps, but by manipulating the size and design of the images they definitely look like different apes.  Finally, I changed the color to orange to fit with the Tennessee theme.

 

I mostly like the way the design came out.  The lettering is a little strange because it crosses the orange and white backgrounds, but I tried multiple different text layouts and I couldn't find any that I like better.  I really like the addition of the extant primates because it adds context to the evolutionary tree depicted in the girl.  It would be cool to include similar evolutionary lineages in the other primates, but unfortunately I am not very familiar with the evolutionary records of other primates and I know for chimpanzees few fossils have been recovered.

 

The judging of the designs doesn't happen until January, so I guess there won't be any updates till then.  Hope you like the design, and think it would make a neat t-shirt. :)

A War for Hearts and Minds?

Human evolution fascinates me.  The lack of acceptance of evolutionary theory in regards to human development astounds and horrifies me.

I designed this piece to express what I thought was a clear view on evolution.  Basically, the image depicts the evolutionary lineage leading to Homo sapiens, starting with Au. afarensis at the bottom.  Au. boisei is the skull that is placed off to the left and represents an off shoot of the hominin lineage that branches away from the human lineage on a different evolutionary trajectory, eventually becoming extinct.  The skulls that continue up the torso are Homo erectus, followed by archaic Homo sapiens, then Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.  In this depiction, Neanderthals are considered to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens, rather than a separate species, which is still a hotly debated topic amongst paleoanthropologists.

Originally, many were convinced that Neanderthals and humans were biologically distinct species that did not interbreed due to the lack of admixture in mitochondrial DNA sequences of modern humans.  But more recent studies comparing nuclear DNA mixture, suggest the possibility that admixture may have indeed been occurring as modern humans and neanderthals appear to have genetic overlap.

The hand in the upper left corner of the picture is holding an apple, which the girl is reaching for.  In my original interpretation the girl represents modern humans, and evolutionary lineage of hominins is indelibly imprinted fundamental structure of her existence and physical morphology.  The hand represents an unknown omnipotent deity, extending the "fruit of knowledge," although the gesture can be seen as a taunt since there is no way for the girl to actually reach the information.

After finishing the design I quickly, and a bit glibly or maybe snarkily wrote up this description of the piece:

"even with all the evidence supporting an evolutionary path of human origins, the search for supernatural explanations continues with answers danging, forever, just out of reach (2011/Sept. 12)"


It has been several months since I finished the piece and since then I have had found myself re-evaluating my initial description of the work and even the very thought process behind it.  While I still agree with my original plan for the girl depicting human evolution, the relationship between the girl and the hand has bothered me.  Rather than depicting a negative view of God, the hand could instead be culture as a whole including a human drive to understand existence in terms of a divine presence, or even another human passing cultural knowledge on to the next generation.  While some cultural learning may be incorrect or illogical, the adaptation of culture is uniquely human.  


Since most of my training is in biology I sometimes forget the importance of recognizing the importance of culture as an adaptation for humans.  It is easy to criticize what we don't fully understand.  Rather than invoking the imagery of a war between evolution and religion, this piece can simultaneously represent the dual forces of cultural knowledge and biological adaptation that contribute to the modern understanding of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.  If I were asked to describe the piece today I think I would choose this description instead:


"anthropology: a multi-faceted approach to understanding and connecting hearts, minds and morphological origins (2011/Nov. 28)"