hand screenprinted box set edition 2012

I'm late to post this blog entry, as I actually made this print last October, but better late than never...

So, this is a screenprint with embroidery that I made to take part in East London Printmakers' 2012 Box Set edition.  I printed it at home in my garage...

First I painted some writing on the screen using screen drawing fluid.  It will be useful for anyone reading this to know my mistake at this stage - as in the photo above, I first painted it on the 'outside' of the screen, as I usually do when using drawing fluid and screen filler, because the screen filler sits slightly raised on the screen and is better on the non-ink side. But then I realised that of course the writing would come out backwards when I printed it (the screen sits upside-down compared to how it is in the photo).  So I painted it again on the inside of the screen.

I then coated the screen with screen filler and washed out the drawing fluid to leave the text 'stencil.'  And I set up to print in our garage, which you can see is not fully converted into a studio yet!

The screen is fixed into 2 clamps, which are screwed onto a wallpaper pasting table and I've 'registered' the print by printing it onto a piece of acetate, putting the piece of paper which I'll print onto underneath the acetate print in the right place, then putting pieces of masking tape at the corners of the paper so each subsequent piece of paper is in the same place and the print is in the same place on the paper.

After printing the text layer, I then cut out a paper stencil for the yellow body image and printed that on top of each piece of paper.

50 pieces of paper later (more than my clothes horse and clothes pegs could hold at a time!) I was finished the printing part of this image.  Then I poked holes into the paper with an etching needle and sewed red embroidery thread to complete my design.

It's called 'Body Scan', after this meditation-type practice which I feel anchors me to the ground sometimes.

It is part of a Box Set, which East London Printmakers produce every year, where members of the studio make multiple prints then each participant gets a box with one of everyone's prints in it. Also some boxes are spare for the studio to exhibit or archive.