Mia was definitely no stranger to the print studio on arrival, but working in silkscreen during her residency at Smokestack was a first. Naturally, we decided to dive right in with a little playing around making films by hand.

Using familiar mediums such as paint and crayon, Mia got right into the swing of things by experimenting with what was possible working directly on film. This was a great segue from her drawing and painting practice into printmaking.

The films that were created became the starting point for creating screens. After coating screens with photo-sensitive emulsion, we exposed the screen with the film under UV light. The result – beautifully nuanced stencils rendered onto the silk mesh. Shown here is Mia rinsing out the photo-sensitive emulsion after the screen was exposed to UV light.

An important part of any multi-layer printmaking project is ensuring that the various image components are lined up correctly: a process called "registration". Before proceeding with the run of ink, we check registration and often use the films as a quick reference point for seeing how the layers come together.

Pictured here are the initial layers of one of Mia's floral images. In this 9-layer print, colours are successively added one at a time beginning from the lightest and progressing through to the darkest colour. Making sure that registration stays accurate throughout is important to ensure that each layer fill fits neatly in place as the image builds.

An important part of the Smokestack Analog Print Residency is allowing the spontaneity of studio moments to take place. Being able to create and respond to the construction of a print in real time allows artists to create fluidly; to make choices and resolve images in the moment as opposed to an overly contrived process. During her time in the studio, Mia's approach often involved working from newsprint proofs of previous layers to determine subsequent image elements. These proofs often acted as sketches and ways to try things out before jumping into more committed aspects of the finished print.

The early 'play days' in the studio where films were hand-painted proved to be useful as the residency carried forward. Mia adopted this approach in many of the editions that were run and used this image making technique to develop a rich and multi-versed approach to mark making across many of the editions.

Besides using hand-painted film assets, Mia also leaned into the possibilities available with digital drawing tools. In this case, drawings were created using various digital programs and films were produced with digital output. This allowed for added precision with particular image elements.

It's always fun to hang things up mid-process and stand back to take a look from a distance to see how things are progressing!

It's also good to get a close up view! Particularly during the print run where we want to make sure that things are running consistently and smoothly from print to print.

And of course it's important to get the whole gang together to talk about what's been created or simply relish in the beauty of the ink laying on crisp paper!

In these particular prints, most of the inks used were made from raw pigment and acrylic base. This allowed for more dynamic effects with the ink and its reaction with light. The ink itself is rich and lush and in some cases iridescent. As one moves across and around these works, the interaction of ink with light causes shifts both chromatically and tonally.

Towards the end of Mia's residency, she was reunited with the process of copperplate etching. Having taken courses in etching during school, Mia eased back in to reacquaint with an old friend. In this photo, Mia is seen drawing through a wax resist that has been applied to a copper matrix. By piercing through with a very fine needle, Mia scribes her imagery onto the surface of the wax. This technique is called "hard-ground etching" and as the wax is scribed it reveals the underlying copper which is then exposed to acid and chemically etched. The open areas represent the image that will be resolved on the plate whereas covered areas remain untouched.

Beyond drawing into the plate, Mia also took time to prepare and file the edges of the copper to ensure a smooth plate edge and clean bevel that is seen as an embossed edge in print.

In addition to hard-ground etching, Mia also employed "soft-ground" etching. This process differs in that a tackier and softer wax resist is used to cover the surface of the plate. Because of its soft nature, this resist can be easily pushed or pressed into to make very responsive marks. In this case, a layer of vellum was placed overtop of the wax and Mia used a pencil to draw into the vellum to transfer a pencil-like mark into the waxy ground. This can be seen in the nuanced lines of "Brood", the print derived from this particular plate.