It's All In Your Head

For my project, I dealt with the issue of mental illness stigma. Society often acts as though health problems that aren't tangible physical afflictions are not real. I addressed this with my text, which is meant to be two people having a conversation. “It’s all in your head” is a common phrase used to invalidate mental and emotional issues. “Yeah, that’s the problem” is my own sassy response when I’m faced with comments like that. I had the classic issue of putting my letters backwards and not realising until proofing. (Images 1&2)

I began my project by taking a line drawing I had done previously and turning it into a pressure print. This was difficult because the design was not intended for stencil-making. I had to visualise how shadows would appear on the faces and make sure that there were no freestanding pieces of construction paper. (Image 3&4)

For my test prints I used gold on white because those were the colors in use at the time. (Image 5)

I chose the color blue for the background because it felt somber, emotional and reflective. I had hoped the color would turn out slightly less teal to reflect the mood of the piece. I used a darker blue for the text because it had to be visible on the teal background but also match the rest of the piece. I felt that black would be too stark against the rest of the two-tone image. I had the negative space be blue because I wanted the print to look very complete. However, in highsight this cause some issues with the border. If I did this project again, I would make my pressure print sheet larger to avoid unwanted borders. (Image 6)

-Natalie Bauer, Scripps '21