Pretty Patterned Folk Bird Decorations

These patterned folk bird decorations have been keeping me busy lately! One design is screen printed in metallic green with blue details, the other design is screen printed in metallic red with the details added in a darker shade of red. All the birds are glued, then cut out by hand and threaded so they are ready to hang. This year I have been selling the birds online and they have also migrated to shops around the country!

Blue & Silver Angel Decorations

Only got as far as screen printing samples of these new angel decorations... I didn't have time to print the finished version. They are screen printed in silver and blue on A4 sheets of kraft recycled card. Each angel is made up of three A4 sheets so they stand upright. There are just ten finished angels and if anybody likes them... they are £12 including UK postage! If you would like to buy one email me at karolinemadethis@gmail.com and £10 from every sale will be donated to a local food bank.

MAKE 2020 Contemporary Crafts for Christmas

During this month's lockdown it was nice to receive some good news... MAKE 2020 Contemporary Crafts for Christmas was installed and photographs were already on the Devon Guild website. It had taken me a lot of time and effort to get everything ready for the exhibition including three new screen prints. I had only just posted a big box of framed prints to Devon when the second lockdown was announced. It was such a disappointment to think the prints might not get seen. So it was great to see photographs and films of the exhibition shared online. Thank you to staff at the Devon Guild for working so hard to showcase the work of 50 exhibitors even in lockdown! Hopefully the exhibition will open from the 2nd of December (tbc) 2020 until the 10th of January 2021. Meanwhile you can see photographs of the exhibition on the Devon Guild website; https://www.crafts.org.uk/all-exhibitions/make-2020

 

Angels & Folk Birds for Folka

Making angel and folk bird decorations has been keeping me busy lately! The angels are screen printed in bronze and teal on kraft recycled card. Each angel is made of three screen printed sheets of card so I need to print sixty angels just to make twenty finished decorations. Once the ink is dry the prints are folded down the middle, glued together and then every angel is cut out by hand. It's alot of work but after years of practice it gets easier and I can make about twenty angels in eight hours! Recently I've also been printing gold and green angels aswell as more folk birds. The birds are made from one sheet of kraft card screen printed in blue and metallic green on one side and then metallic green on the other side. As soon as the ink is dry they're glued together, cut out by hand & threaded ready to hang.

These decorations are now on the way to Folka in London. You can find out more about the shop and the hand made work it sells here https://www.folka.co/

Leicester Print Festival & Print Fair!

From Monday the 23rd of November until Sunday the 29th of November it is Leicester Print Festival; a whole week of online printmaking activities, demonstrations and events all organised by Leicester Print Workshop. For my contribution to the festival I visited the workshop just before lockdown and did a demonstration of screen printing a two colour print. There was alot to remember as I had to take all the equipment and materials needed, then set up to print in a space I've only worked in once before. It was a little nerve wracking but I'm glad to have tried something new especially as so much is taking place online at the moment. You can watch the film of my demonstration here: https://www.makeprints.co.uk/festival-programme/silkscreen-with-karoline-rerrie

As part of the festival Leicester Print Fair is also taking place online this weekend on the 28th and 29th of November. There will be virtual stalls from nearly 30 print makers from around the UK and a colourful selection of my limited edition screen prints will be available to buy from the print fair. These are just some of my prints which will be for sale on the website this Saturday and Sunday. Leicester Print Festival including the print fair can be found here: https://www.makeprints.co.uk/

 

Little Lucky Stars

Here's some little rainbow coloured 'Lucky Star' screen prints I finished late last night. I used hand cut paper stencils to print an edition of 25 prints with fluorescent blue, fluorescent red and yellow on A5 size offcuts of Fabriano paper. The prints are just £12 plus £1 for UK postage and packaging, they're easy to post to someone who has been a star or who needs good luck! I'm selling these and other screen prints from my Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/karoline.rerrie/

Colourful Rainbow Screenprints

During lock down I've not had access to a print studio and facilities to make the photo stencils I usually work with. So instead I've been hand cutting paper stencils and using them to screen print with at home. I wanted to see if I could use the stencils to quickly print rainbows with just three colours instead of six. They didn't look much like rainbows until I added the yellow and then suddenly they did! After making some test prints I tried printing more rainbows in the CMYK colours of cyan, magenta and yellow. They worked well and I finished a small edition of 20 'Smiley Rainbows' on A4 size heavy 300gsm Snowdon cartridge paper. I sold most of the edition and donated £10 from each sale to Bristol Children's Hospital. It has helped to do something positive in these difficult times.

Because the edition of bright coloured rainbows were so popular I decided to screen print a new edition of paler coloured rainbows. I mixed up some pastel coloured inks and did some test prints first to check the overlapping colours worked. They did so I screen printed an edition of 25 pastel coloured 'Smiley Rainbow' screen prints on A4 sized 250gsm Fabriano paper. Most of them have now sold but I still have a few left which are £20 plus postage and packaging. If you would like to buy one please send an email addressed to Karoline at karolinemadethis@gmail.com or get in touch via my Facebook page. £10 from every sale will be donated to Sheffield Children's Hospital.

https://en-gb.facebook.com/karoline.rerrie/

COVID-19 Emergency Response Funding

In March I packed away all my materials and equipment for screen printing workshops and I am still not sure when I will be using them again. So it was a relief to find out in May that my application for COVID-19 Emergency Response Funding from the Arts Council had been accepted. Up to half my income usually comes from delivering workshops for funded organisations and working on funded projects. But so far everything from March until June has either been postponed or cancelled. Support to help with the situation is very welcome. What happens after June is also a concern but hopefully now I'll be in a better position to deal with the uncertain future.

Bird's Yard Sheffield

Thanks to the lovely folk at Bird's Yard in Sheffield a colourful collection of my greetings cards is available to buy online. Receiving cheerful post helps lift spirits in these difficult times and Bird's Yard have lots of cards and gifts to chose from if you want to send something to friends or family. Online sales will help support independent shops and galleries who have had to temporarily close. It's also a  great help to have more of my work available online especially as I'm not able to do much at the moment. Hoping to get back to work and screen printing more cards as soon as I'm well again. https://www.birdsyard.co.uk/

Stay Home, Stay Safe & Save Lives

It's easy for me to say stay home, stay safe and save lives during this terrible pandemic. Luckily my home studio is already set up, I'm used to working from my little house most of the time and there's always plenty to do here. I also spent a few days frantically preparing for the lock down... juggling my finances and ordering some of the necessities I need to carry on working and screen printing. But even so I am finding the situation hard particularly as I've had very little income for the last two weeks and will have almost no money coming in for the next few months. One by one all of my workshops, projects and events have been cancelled until at least June. There probably won't be sales from shops and galleries now because most have had to temporarily close. My expenses on the other hand will continue as I still have monthly subscriptions and other work related bills to pay. Many of my friends and colleagues are also freelance, self employed and run small businesses. We are all feeling as if we have forgotten about and there generally seems to be a lack of understanding of what we do and how we contribute to the economy.

Happy Prints for a Sad Day

Here's a reminder of happier, more positive times... some of my colourful screen prints from a few years ago. They're all inspired by Polish and Eastern European folk art. Through my work I've been lucky to have met many interesting people from Central & Eastern Europe as well as British people with Eastern European heritage. So today I am thinking of all those who have made the UK their home and in particular the ones who have become my friends. I am hoping they will be treated fairly over the coming months and allowed to continue living and working in this country.

Colourful Screen Print Commission

Earlier this month I finished my first commission of 2020! It was a bit of a challenge as I was asked to screen print larger versions of two of my limited edition screen prints. Luckily they were both one colour designs but matching the original colours was harder than I expected and meant printing quite a few samples. Once that was done I had to print out A3 transparencies then coat and expose two screens. Lastly I spent a morning screen printing the two designs and making sure there were no mistakes! Printing was a little stressful but worth the effort in the end. It was nice to see my artwork bigger for a change and I feel inspired to create more larger prints in the future!

Snail Mail

2020 got off to a slow start with these new snail greetings cards for people who like snail mail! I screen printed a little test run of them with green and metallic purple ink on some left over recycled card. Printing was slow though as the second colour was very difficult to register. But at least the colour combination worked well... it's not true that green and purple should never be seen!