The exhibition is Olympic-themed, and I made a print about monkeys riding bmx bikes on a snake. I used a stencil, bicycle tyre, block printing, screenprinting and embroidery to make the picture. I started off creating a texture by using a stencil and a tyre from my bicycle to print with:
First I practised on this bright blue polycotton to see whether the bike tyre would work as a print, then later I printed it again on a pale turquoise linen for the final print. As you can see, I printed it on the kitchen floor (perhaps my blog should be "kitchenfloorprintmaker"!), with my baby waiting patiently in his standy-thing while my husband took these photos.
After the stencil-tyre print, I block printed bmx-tyre marks on the snake, then screen-printed the monkeys, and machine embroidered then hand embroidered on the textile.
Here are some sneak previews of the final picture, which I called "Play!" If you want to see the whole piece, it will be on display at East London Printmakers "Printathon" exhibition from 8th June-1st July at Foreman's Smokehouse Gallery, E3 2NT (see www.eastlondonprintmakers.co.uk for details).
