Summer Screen Printing Workshops

I have a few screen printing workshops coming up so at the moment I'm preparing some new examples to help explain the technique. Today I decided to go back to basics and create a very simple design inspired by George Braque's 'Birds in Flight'. First I hand cut paper stencils of my design and then I used one stencil to screen print a blue background. While that was drying I washed my screen and set up to print my next layer of colour. I used my second stencil to add some pale blue birds on top of the blue background. I did this all in just a morning and that is the great thing about screen printing with paper stencils... it's so quick and accessible! It doesn't require any nasty chemicals and all the materials and equipment are affordable as well as readily available. I'll be teaching this technique on Saturday the 10th of August at the RBSA Gallery. I also have another workshop there on Wednesday the 23rd of October. More details about these and lots of other workshops can be found on the gallery's website http://www.rbsa.org.uk/

More Art in the Park!

Back in Birmingham after a busy weekend at Art in the Park Festival in Leamington Spa. I enjoyed exhibiting my screen prints in the beautiful setting of the Royal Pump Rooms alongside other artists and designer makers. Although we didn't get the same footfall as stall holders in the park I still met lots of friendly visitors... including someone who I was on art foundation with about 20 years ago! It was lovely to be with fellow exhibitors from Birmingham especially Gosia Weber. She very kindly took me and my work to Leamington every day which was a huge help and meant I could take some framed prints. I also displayed plenty of publicity materials for future events and the RBSA Gallery leaflets were particularly popular with visitors! Overall the experience was a positive one and I feel I made the most of it. I hope I have the opportunity to take part in future events in Leamington and Warwickshire.

Leamington Art in the Park Festival 2019

 

This weekend I'm taking part in Royal Leamington Spa's Art in the Park Festival. It's my first time exhibiting my screen prints at Art in the Park and also my first time exhibiting my work in Leamington. I've never been to the festival before so I've no idea what to expect... it's exciting and a little bit scary too! Luckily I've had a couple of quiet weeks to prepare and so I've been working on some new designs including this Green Man. I wanted to do something a little bit different and also challenge myself so it's been alot of hard work. Just creating the design took a while and once the artwork was finished I had to scan it and create the separate layers of colour. I spent a morning coating screens and exposing transparencies for each layer onto them followed by an afternoon screen printing bright coloured proofs. Then I spent a day screen printing a small edition of A3 four colour prints. There were supposed to be more but I'm out of practice at screen printing A3 so made some silly mistakes... like not clamping the screen in properly! At least the gradient turned out really well.

Art in the Park Festival takes place on the 3rd and 4th of August in the in the beautiful surroundings of Jephson Gardens in Leamington. There's lots more information including a brochure on the website https://www.artinpark.co.uk/