wood block printing workshop with Sarah Lawton

In July I went to a wood block printing workshop taught by artist-in-residence at East London Printmakers, Sarah Lawton.

Sarah had spent some time in Gujarat state in India, working on a collaborative project with local artisans (block print and embroidery) during an artist's residency. She shared some information about this experience and its outcomes - one outcome was an artist's book Sarah had made called A New Manifesto Ten Indian Insights and another was some garments that Sarah had block printed.

The first thing we did in the workshop was do some block printing on fabric using textile ink and blocks that Sarah had had made in India.

Then Sarah demonstrated carving plywood using Japanese woodcut tools, and the workshop participants each drew their own design on a piece of plywood and cut it out.

I printed my design of birds flocking, onto a piece of cloth. I didn't love the print, but I didn't come with a specific design in mind, this was just an image I had been thinking about so I could develop it more to make a better print. Also I found the plywood difficult to carve as I mostly just use lino when I do block printing. Lino cuts in all directions easily but with wood you have to follow the grain, especially with plywood - or it splinters.

During the workshop we also made a collaborative print on paper using Sarah's Indian wood blocks and gouache paints:

I found the workshop very interesting. Particularly hearing about Sarah's collaborative artistic practice and seeing some natural dyes which Sarah had brought back from India, which she said should work alright as printing pigments if mixed with a medium for textile printing. I love the idea of doing the whole printing process using organic sustainable materials such as natural dyes and wood (although lino is easier for me to carve). I've never tried mixing plant dyes with textile binder but I'd like to.

festival t-shirt printing workshop

Three weeks ago I taught a t-shirt printing workshop for children at the Blythe Hill Fields festival in South East London.

It was a good day.  I was in a crafts tent in the middle of the fields, with a great view down to Canary Wharf:

I started off using my embroidery hoop screens plus stencils - some made by me, and some from "Stencil 101" by Ed Roth and a Dover book of dinosaur stencils.

The children could choose a stencil, a selection of which I had taped to the back of the tent, and a colour of fabric paint, and they put a piece of newspaper inside a t-shirt and placed their stencil on the t-shirt where they wanted to print it. Then they used a plastic card to spread fabric paint over the embroidery hoop screen with the stencil underneath, and lifted up the hoop and stencil to reveal the print. Some children wanted to add hand-painted effects with a brush as well, which added a nice individual creative if messy element to the t-shirts.

Then, when it got busier, which it did particularly when it started to rain and everyone came into the various tents in the festival to shelter, I didn't have time to wash up the hoop screens and just gave out the stencils with brushes and fabric paint.

The children who participated made some great t-shirts and it was a fun day.

lichen curtains

I finally finished making the lichen fabric that I printed last year into curtains...

I deliberated over making them into curtains, as I'd started the print on grey linen but hadn't realised the linen was a remnant at the fabric shop where I bought it, and they didn't have enough left when I returned for me to make curtains.

However when we got a sofa that was more black than grey I decided the the print I had done on a second, darker fabric I had bought (denim) matched the new sofa well, so used it after all.

My mother-in-law did a lot of the sewing for me, as I'd never made lined curtains before, and she measured and attached the lining.  It then took me a while to get around to finishing them by hemming the curtains and lining, and attaching the curtain tape. But it wasn't too difficult in the end (just big, when you're used to only sewing small things like pouches and bags).

They're not perfect (my part of the sewing anyway! my mother-in-law's sewing together of the lining and curtain material was great), but now they're up in our living room and it's nice to see my print in use as curtains, similar to how I envisaged it.

So, in conclusion - if you print onto fabric, I'd recommend you to make your own curtains out of printed fabric, and I found a useful video on youtube which helped me to finish sewing them.

handmade screenprinting workshop

Last month I taught a workshop on handmade screenprinting in Peebles, near Edinburgh.

Firstly the workshop participants cut out paper stencils based on previous sketches they had made and printed these onto fabric, using screen mesh stretched in an embroidery hoop as a screen and printing with fabric paint:

Then participants prepared second screens using drawing fluid and screen filler stencils, and printed these as a second layer on their textile prints:

Some more prints:

...and more:

...and a selection of the final prints laid out on a table:

The aim was for participants to try out handmade screenprinting, and to make the base for a textile artwork that could be added to with embroidery or worked on further if the artist wishes.

The workshop participants came mostly from the Peebles Creative Space art group which meets regularly with their teacher, artist Claire Blyth.  They all worked hard throughout the workshop and I think they made a variety of beautiful and original textile prints.

nasturtium prints

I printed my nasturtium designs using paper stencils and a handmade screen-filler screen...

I printed the first layer using paper stencils under an embroidery hoop with screen mesh.  I used discharge paste to print these designs - it takes the colour out of fabric, to leave a negative-looking shape.

When you print with discharge paste you can't see the print, except as a wet mark where the paste printed.  Then you have to wait for it to dry, then steam it for about 20 minutes (e.g. in a colander above boiling water in a big pan - wrap your printed fabric in tea towels or some other fabric before putting it in your homemade steamer).  After steaming you can wash the print and that's when the discharge print appears, taking the colour out of the fabric.

After the discharge prints had dried, I printed on top of them with normal printing paste (orange screenprinting ink), with the screen I made previously using drawing fluid and screen filler.

I'm planning to embroider over these pictures and make more layers using stitch.

how to make a stencil on a small screen using drawing fluid

I prepared a small screen for printing, using an embroidery hoop, some screen mesh, drawing fluid and screen filler...

First I cut out a square of screen mesh (you can buy this from George Weil, or just use net curtain fabric) and put it over the inner hoop of an embroidery hoop:

Then I trimmed the screen mesh and put the 'screen' face down over an image I wanted to trace, and traced it onto the screen mesh with a pencil (the pencil doesn't show very well in this photo, but I could see it well enough to paint over the lines).

Next I painted over the pencil lines using screen drawing fluid (the blue-coloured liquid in these photos, made by Speedball), left the drawing fluid to dry, then spread some screen filler (also by Speedball, you can get it online) over the screen using a plastic card.

The front of the screen (where I spread the screen filler) will now have some filler over the blue drawing fluid image, but if you check the back (inside) of the screen, you should still be able to see your drawing fluid painted image clearly, without too much screen filler blobbing over the edges of your image.  As long as you can see your image from the back of the screen, it should wash out ok...

I left the screen filler to dry (you can speed up the process with a hairdryer) then held the screen up to the light, to check if there were any holes in the screen filler, and painted over these with some screen filler and a small paintbrush.

When all the screen filler was dry, I just washed out the drawing fluid under the tap.  You can use a fingernail or toothbrush to pick off any bits of screen filler that are blocking your stencil, then hold the screen up to the light to check that your drawing fluid image has washed out...

Your embroidery hoop screen is now ready for printing!

Christmas Cactus stencil print

I made a stencilled card for my Dad's birthday...

First I took a photo of a Christmas Cactus plant I have, then I printed the photo and traced the shapes of the leaves and flowers. I coloured in selected areas of the traced design:

Then I traced the areas that I would stencil in different colours, as separate layers, and cut them out of card with a craft knife:

Then I stencilled the design onto a blank card using a brush and acrylic paints:

I stencilled the 'soil' by cutting out that area and drawing in there with a black coloured pencil, as opposed to paint, to add some texture to the picture.

A Christmassy-New Year-Birthday print!

You can make a stencilled picture with your own design by following those steps.