The Art of Screen Printing

Packed up some of my favourite inks, squeegees, screens and even a bucket to take to Hall Green for a two hour demonstration! The theme of the demonstration was 'The art of Screen Printing' and it was for Hall Green Art Society, a group of local artists. I prepared two different techniques of screen printing to do during the evening but wasn't sure I would be able to get everything done! Luckily what I had planned actually filled the two hours perfectly. I started by screen printing this sunset using hand cut stencils and three overlapping layers of bright coloured ink. Then I also printed this flower design using photo stencils and three different colours. I just managed to print the final colour on a couple of flowers and that left ten minutes for the prints to dry!

 

 

Rainbow Coloured Flowers

Here's a pretty pastel coloured flower screen print I've been working on using just three colours and some basic hand cut stencils. Originally I created the design as an example for workshops but it was so popular I decided to screen print a finished edition! There were meant to be twenty five prints in the edition but my squeegee bade fell out and ruined one. Then I dropped the metal handle and it ripped my screen, what a disaster! It's a shame because almost all the other prints were perfect and I ended up with an edition of twenty two plus a couple of extras. I always try and have some spare prints just incase any in the edition get damaged... which they usually do!

A few of these rainbow coloured flowers have already sold, others have gone to shops and galleries and a few will be coming with me to events in Spring and Summer. My first real world event of 2022 is the Blue Magpie Craft Fair on Saturday the 30th of April. It's a lovely event organised by Anna Taylor who makes the most amazing food including lots of delicious cakes. The fair actually takes place in Anna's home Elmslie House in Malvern. More information can be found on the Blue Magpie website https://www.bluemagpie.co.uk/

Tutton and Young - Made for Ukraine

I screen printed a finished edition of twenty 'Blue and Yellow Sunflowers' using hand cut stencils and just two colours. They are printed on A4 size 300gsm white Snowden cartridge paper and the colours are lovely and bright. But I was a bit nervous about trying to sell all the prints for charity on my own. Very luckily Tutton and Young decided to organise 'Made for Ukraine' on Instagram and they put a call out for makers to participate by selling or auctioning work in aid of the Disaster Emergency Committee's Ukraine appeal. I was glad to be able to participate in the week long online event alongside fifty other makers! The event started on Monday the 14th of March and by Tuesday evening my edition of twenty sunflower screen prints had all sold out and raised £500 for the DEC! The prints sold so well I decided to screen print a small second edition of ten 'Blue and Yellow Sunflowers'. They have almost all sold and so far raised about £750 in total. I'm really hoping this will help people fleeing the devastating war in Ukraine. The news has been so distressing and I think we all need something positive to hope for.

Blue and Yellow Sunflowers for Ukraine

I've been working out how to screen print my sunflower design using hand cut stencils and just two colours; the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag... or at least what Google told me they are! I redrew my sunflower design so it had a background similar to the flag. Next I carefully hand cut a stencil for each of the two colours. Then I screen printed the blue background including some of the details like the petals and leaves. Finally I added a layer of yellow and where the two colours overlapped they created green. There were some problems printing the little sunflower seeds so I needed to make some slight changes. But apart from that the sunflowers worked well and I decided to screen print a finished edition to sell to help raise money for charities working in Ukraine. The wonderful culture, traditions and folk art of Ukraine often inspires my work so I wanted to show some support and solidarity for the Ukrainian people. 

Rainbow Stencil Screen Printing Workshop

This never gets boring! I've been using simple hand cut stencils to screen print overlapping layers of magenta, cyan and yellow ink which creates rainbow coloured prints. It's so much fun and the possibilities are endless which is why I'll be teaching a 'Rainbow Stencil Screen Printing' one day course at Leicester Print Workshop. To prepare for my course I'm making new examples and resources which will help me show how to create designs suitable for screen printing, how to make hand cut stencils and how to screen print rainbow coloured prints! As well as demonstrating the technique and supporting participants to make their own prints I'll also provide handouts with instructions and a list of all the materials and equipment needed. My course takes place at Leicester Print Workshop on Saturday the 19th of March 2022 and runs from 10am until 4pm. It's a great location near Leicester city centre and easy to get to on public transport or by car. More information about the day and details of how to book can be found on the LPW website http://www.leicesterprintworkshop.com/courses/                                                                                                        

 

Psychedlic Sunset Screen Prints!

These sunset and mountain screen prints are a bit psychedelic! But they show exactly what screen printing with hand cut stencils does well. It is particularly good for printing bold shapes and layers of lovely flat bright colours! Designs don't need to be complicated, infact the simpler they are the better. Cutting the stencils for this sunset and screen printing it was fairly quick and easy. Here is each layer in the order they were printed to show how they combine to create the finished prints.

Summer Screen Printing Workshops

Snip, snip, snip and rip, rip, rip! To celebrate a summer of screen printing workshops I created this bright coloured sunshine print using simple stencils made from cut and torn pieces of paper. It was screen printed with just three colours; fluorescent pink, process yellow and ultramarine blue. But the overlapping layers also created purple, orange and green. I love the combination of bright contrasting colours and also the effect of torn paper edges. Lately I've been working on lots of new examples for workshops... hoping to inspire people and show what can be done with hand cut stencils.

Yesterday was my first screen print workshop at the RBSA Gallery since February 2020... just before lockdown! The workshop was sold out but will be repeated on the 18th of August so there's another chance to learn how to screen print using hand cut stencils if you are local to Birmingham. A few days later I'll be heading to Leicester Print Workshop where I'll be teaching for the first time, eek! The workshop has been rescheduled several times due to various lockdowns so I can't quite believe it's finally happening! 

More details about my workshop on the 18th of August can be found on the RBSA Gallery website https://www.rbsa.org.uk/workshops