High Roller Society Teeshirt Printing with Copyem

High Roller Society

10 Palmers Rd

London E2 0SY

Sat 30 June & Sun 1 Jul 2012, 1pm - 5 pm

Copyem: Facebook; Tumblr

All photos: NolionsInEngland

This Graffoto scribe has learned a bit about various forms of printing at workshops which run by High Rollers Society gallery in East London.  As the NoLions wardrobe is notably bereft of cool teeshirts, a teeshirt printing workshop looked like too good an opportunity to miss.

Copyem, master of tee shirt printing, has been printing teeshirts, sweat shirts, hoodies, vests, tote bags as well as vinyl, paper and boxes for a couple of years out of his own  fully equipped studio.  High Rollers bumped into Copyem at Pick Me Up, the contemporary graphic art fair at Somerset House earlier this year and that chance encounter between kindred spirits led to this workshop this weekend.

Copyem brought some screens and some basic teeshirt printing equipment to the gallery.  Not to damn with faint praise but for multicolour printing and larger volumes Copyem uses 8 frame carousels which are not practical to schlep across London to the gallery, hence the basic gear in use today.

Graffiti Is For Losers - Copyem12

The first step in the process is obviously, create your artwork, which leads onto the second step, burn your screen.   Step 1 was fulfilled by several notable artists and Copyem had already burned the screens back at base.

Copyem screen

Handy tip alert - Copyem applies an abundance of tape to the screen outside the image area in case there are spots where the photosensitive chemical didn’t harden in the burning process, so the parcel tape prevents un-wanted ink leaking through those spots. The screens are clamped into the screenprinting press with the image centralised.  A light spray of adhesive to prevent the teeshirt from slipping around preceeds the stretching of a teeshirt over the wooden base.   

Young Master NoLions - Scientists discover lack of can skills is hereditary

The screen is charged with screenprinter ink, though other forms of acrylic and water soluble ink can be used, and the squeegee is used to drag ink across to “flood” the screen.

Flooding complete, the ace printer makes two or three passes across the screen with the squeegee to force the ink through onto the teeshirt.  We were all ace printers for one afternoon!

When the image looks solidly printed, the screen is lifted and a heater element placed a couple of inches over the tee to dry the ink off.  Rumours abounded of people popping tees into the oven or under the grill to complete this stage.  

Hey presto, super cool kid with the hottest teeshirt around.

At the workshop we saw three different designs being printed , the purple Goldpeg above and  a black on white “Graffiti is for losers" and a pink (ok – fushia) coloured character by Copyem12.   Anyone could have a go at printing the Copyem designs which could be taken away for a fairly nominal donation to the costs.  The Goldpeg and couple of ultra cool multi colour Rowdy and Sweet Toof tees were available to buy from the gallery.   The Sweet Toof tees came with a special screen printed Toof image which looked to have uniquely varied backgrounds.

Rowdy, Goldpeg, Sweet Toof

Sweet Toof screenprints (inside the teeshirt packages)

The compact layout of the High Roller Society gallery makes for a very intimate workshop experience, participants not only get to see every aspect of the process close up, the “vibe” lends itself to informal discussion with the expert presented as the workshop progresses and everyone gets to have a crack as well.    If you are reading this on Sat 30 June 2012 or before 5 pm Sunday 1 July then there is  a chance tomorrow (Sunday) for people who couldn’t make today to have a go and (or) to pick up some of those cool teeshirts.  Well worth a quick visit.

Copyem: Facebook; Tumblr

PS - a tiny selection of the cool schiz from the Good Times Roll Show now on at High Rollers- another good reason for heading down to High Roller Society:

Numskull (Aus)

Rowdy

Nylon

Martin Lea-Brown

Remi Rough

Dark Clouds (NY)

Milo Tchais

Dark Clouds (NY)

Graffoto Round Up of the Year - Part 1

Welcome pop pickers! A post I have meant to do for the last few years on Graffoto has been a look back at the year, be it a good or a bad one (the year, not the post). The problem in previous years was that I just always ended up leaving it too late in the holiday, my bingo wings thus being held down by my own weight in mince pies and turkey leftovers and sapped of the energy to bother. So whilst the intention this year was to start this post pre Christmas in the hope it kicks me up the arse to finish the rest closer to the end of the year, here I am a couple of days away from New Year's.... So it's more than likely that this will be a post that carries over into 2012. I'll split the year into 4 parts so as not to make the post so long. A picture heavy and word "lite" effort it's about my third post of the year and certainly the biggest on Graffoto. My favourite pictures and work that has gone up throughout the year, starting right at the top of January. . . All pictures are by HowAboutNo except where stated. Cept & Sweet Toof Nychos & Vibes Photo supplied by Mr S. Toof

Philth (indeed!) Kid Acne's Artfags (Spectre also on the decaying shop front sign) Plastic Bones Dscreet & Kid Acne AMAZING to see Zezao work up in London in his unmistakeable style Milo Tchais also getting up more than I remember in previous years. Roa In fact this whole spot got a lot of action in 2011, Mr Sperme popped up and knocked out this one. Shame there weren't many others. Ranking highly as my fave piece of the year...and it's a sticker :( Sadly Stormie Mills didn't paint any London walls that I found in 2011. Slipping in a little bit of South Coast action . . .I found a nice little spot closer to home in Hastings. Unfortunately I have only managed to go there once with a camera in hand. Must change that in 2012. Michael De Feo had a show in London and left a few flowers. A few artists hit the Grand Union Canal at Broadway Market one weekend in March, am not sure there was any event other than perhaps a meet at a local hostelry. . . Xenz Teddy Baden Dotmasters Just oodles of generic damage was often my highlight of the year...more in later posts but this was a big big fave. . .

Gold Peg did a few activist/occupy related pieces through the year (more later) This was the first and boldest, the ad company blocking the message out days later.

Tizer went to Leake Street and did this piece in amazing quick time. I think the squiddlywinkswould call this one SICK!

Gold Peg hit some of the most eye catching and clever spots throughout the year as far as I am concerned, proving as always that half, if not more of the work is all in the placement. My fave other placed spot this year was a piece by Revok, which featured on his blog Revok was later arrested in April 2011 for failing to pay damages to the victims of his previous vandalism crimes So that's it for part 1 of this round up which covered January to March (at least in the order I found them, as mentioned some of the pieces are years old) Part 2 to follow soon covering, you guessed it......April to June.

Zezao Highraff Milo Tchais - Pure Evil Gallery

London
5 Sep 2008


London has vibrant street art, a dynamic culture and glorious weather so it is unsurprising that half of Brazil feels spiritually drawn to Pure Evil’s gallery for a Zezao/Highraff/Milo Tchais show.

sunny spells later, probably


Zezao, Highraff and Milo Tchais have been brightening the streets of Brazil together for over 10 years in an uncharacteristically un-Brazilian non-Pixação psychedelic manner.


Zezao/Highraff/Milo Tchais

This threesome kindly re-painted the walls of the evil one’s gallery, the black background makes the pieces on the ground floor leap off the wall.


Dirty Arse Mother

Milo Tchais has recently been seen rocking his cans on the streets of London as the mysterious 2nd man working with The krah outside The Foundry.


Milo Tchais w/ The Krah, others under

Of the trio, Milo Tchais’ work is most recognisably real world, but always the backgrounds of swirling riotous colour overwhelm shadowy figures lurking on the edges of conciousness.


Milo Tchais – Se Mente


Zezao is most likely to be familiar to European audiences thanks to a feature spot in last year’s Bomb It movie. The movie captured his wholly abstract work in the almost complete darkness of San Paulo’s drain system and the curious method of mixing the colours by dropping them into the flowing stream or damp pipe lining at his feet. His indoor work with its blistered colours on neon stencilled backgrounds work bears little of that San Paulo sewer rat ethos.


Zezao - Untitled

Of the three visitors, Zezou’s is undoubtedly the most abstract. Blistering bubbles are set in chromatic warped colour gradients.


Zezao - Untitled


Highraff attributes the efforts of the three to a purely abstract manner whose meaning is wholly free and up to the viewer to pursue their own interpretation. His work bears the largest debt to a graphic design heritage. The organic shapes suggest tubular plants or acid cactii buds.


Highraff – Lilac Painting


All Highraffs pieces are exquisitely executed, the common element being segmented tubular eruptions with a manga style delineated shading effect, close inspection suggests an effect or technique are not unlike Insa’s booty arses and legs.


Highraff - Untitled


Highraff also has a biblical origins-of-universe boiling light and molten eruptions thing going on. Curiously, I felt a strange longing for a pizza.


Highraff – Orange Series


This is the first time all three members of this Brazilian crew have exhibited in dedicated group show and their relish of the experience is evident in the way they continuously limbo back and forth across the grubby dungeon floor in their swimming thongs [not pictured]. In celebration, they have produced a pair of enormous lurid pieces, spraycan on Perspex, which is helpful given the rain that pissed down on them from the exposed skylight part of the Evil basement.


Zezao Highraff milo Tchasi collab. Perspex, gallery balloons, deluge


Some might find the work of all three artists reminiscent of Andrew McAtee without the formality and crispness.

Health and Safety culture in this country has as we all know gone berserk, now even Pure Evil feels obliged to issue a warning to anyone who has difficulty putting one foot in front of the other.

Lab Rats Enter At Own Peril


It ain’t a competition but we are allowed to have favourites and for me, Milo Tchais’ bright and contrasting colours and higly dramatic swirling patterns made an un-compromising brilliant impact. This show is an absolute must see for fans of the genre, it has been an over-abundance of riches to have this show following the night after Titifreak opening at O Contemporary. Combine the two for a magic day in London.


Milo Tchais - Sublime

Its well worth seeing quite a few more photos of the show, upstairs and downstairs here: