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- Claire at Telcor Filatelia with Ana and Nidia
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- Coffee harvest, January 1986, UPE La Pintada near Matagalpa. Photo by Claire Kujundzic
One day during our year working in Nicaragua, Claire found an old license plate in a ditch in Managua. It was from 1979, the year the Nicaraguan people overthrew the dictator Somoza, so she set it aside. Fabricated in the blue and white of the country’s flag, it had rusted over the course of six or seven years – a visual metaphor of the betrayal of the revolution by the corrupt, brutal Ortega-Murillo regime.
1979 License plate.
I thought this might make an interesting silkscreen print that would be suitable for a fundraising campaign. Initially I sent funds to the group <Dale una mano a tu Hermano> (“Give a hand to your brother/sister”) which was assisting Nicas in exile in vulnerable situations in Costa Rica. 60% of sales will now go to the Nicaragua Family Support Fund which provides financial support for Nicaraguan political prisoners and their families. Their web page is here.
The order form for these prints is here for anyone who would like one. (FYI there are only 44 in the edition!)
[Please note that my primary market for this print is for people in Canada, the US and Europe, because I want funds to go from outside Nicaragua & Costa Rica, not from inside.]
My process began with “posterizing” a black and white version of the photo to make 6 film positives and photostencils:
Creating thresholds in Photoshop.
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- Darkest threshold.
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- 2nd darkest
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- 3rd darkest
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- Medium threshold
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- 2nd lightest
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- Lightest threshold
Setting up an Illustrator file with six layers allowed me to test out various colour combinations and plan my sequence of inks:
Digital print plan
Then I started mixing various blues:
Mixing blues with transparent medium.
The first colour: a very transparent blue gradient.
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- 1st colour: a very transparent blue gradient.
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- Wet transparent gradient.
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- 1st colour printed on rack.
Second colour: silver.
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- Screen flooded with silver ink.
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- 2nd colour printed on rack.
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- Silver on top of transparent blue.
Third colour: a powder blue.
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- Printing powder blue
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- 3rd colour on rack.
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- Wet powder blue on top of silver on top of transparent blue.
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- 3rd colour dried.
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- Closeup
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- Closeup
Fourth colour: copper mixed with gloss medium.
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- 4th colour (copper) dried
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- closeup
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- closeup shows the sheen of the metallic ink.
Fifth colour: blue.
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- 5th colour, dried.
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- detail, 5th colour
Sixth colour: dark blue.
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- 6th colour drying on rack.
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- detail, 6th colour
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- detail, 6th colour
The final print:
“…Nicaragüita” © Bill Horne 2020
The title, “…Nicaragüita” is named after the song by the brothers Carlos Mejía Godoy and Luis Enrique Mejía Godoy, “Nicaragua, Nicaragüita” – a love song to a country freed from tyranny.
Total print edition: 44 + 4 Artist’s Proofs. Dimensions: 6″ × 12″ (15.5 cm × 31 cm)
Again the order form is here.
(First come, first served 😉
I had a lot of fun printing these and want to thank Claire Kujundzic, Liliana Cisneros, Jacques Lemieux and Sophia Isajiw for their assistance and encouragement!
For those interested in the screen printing process, here’s a rough video recap.
#SOSNicaragua #2añosinjusticia #prohibidolvidar
I think this is vey cool. If it wasn’t just us old farts who were down there in the day, and remember, I think this would make a great rallying cry. ‘Nicaragua, 79!’ As it is I hope it raises good cash for the manos des hermanos. If they don’t sell right away I would like to help and hang one of those on my wall. but let people with cash have first shot. 🙂 Randy
On Tue, 16 Jun 2020 04:26:53 +0000, art by Bill Horne wrote: > WordPress.com > > Bill Horne posted: ” One day during our year working in Nicaragua, > Claire found an old license plate in a ditch in Managua. It was from > 1979, the year the Nicaraguan people overthrew the dictator Somoza, so > she set it aside. Fabricated in the blue and white of the country” > >
Thanks so much, Randy – that means a lot to us!