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.

paper stencils and photo stencils on pebbles prints

The next steps of my pebble prints...

I printed large shapes with a paper stencil (cut out of newsprint with a craft knife) and smaller designs which I'd exposed on a screen coated with photo emulsion (the blue screen above), on top of the textured background I created previously using dyes on an open screen.

Making hand cut paper stencils, and choosing where to position the exposed designs by moving the screen around and blocking off the parts I didn't want to print allowed some spontaneity in the printing process.  I enjoyed not planning the design of the whole picture in advance.

monoprint with dyes on an open screen

I made this mono-screenprint recently on a course I'm taking about creative textiles.  I laid out some string and flour on a piece of paper and placed a blank screen on top, then spread turquoise Procion P dye over the screen with a squeegee, pressing down hard over the textured objects.  Then I painted some yellow dye over the top of this with a pipette.  I then left the whole thing to dry and after it was dry, removed the paper and string (which was now stuck to the screen with the dried-on dye - I had to pull the paper and string off) and printed it onto calico by pulling Manutex paste through the screen with a squeegee...

It made some interesting textures where the traces of string, flour and stuck-on paper interacted with the dye.  I printed it six times (on six different pieces of fabric) before the dye on the screen started to fade too much to make a good image.

I'm planning to use this as a background for an art print I have in mind, and so I'll screenprint over the top of this next with stencils and pigment fabric inks (not dye).

kitchen table prints logo

I've made a new logo for this blog.  I cut the design out of lino then printed it and scanned the handmade print into the computer. If there's anybody out there, please let me know what you think!

New logo:

Old blog photo:

potato prints!

Here are some colourful potato prints on cotton fabric, made by students on a fabric printing course I started teaching last week:

Imprint exhibition

I went to the private view of Imprint - an exhibition of printed design, at Craft Central in Clerkenwell.

I was invited by my friend Katherina Manolessou, an artist and illustrator who makes screenprinted artwork.  Here's Katherina at the private view:

Katherina's screenprints are witty and full of fantastic creatures.  They're great!

I also liked some printed textiles by Kate Clarke in the Imprint exhibition.  I saw bright screenprinted pouches featuring blown-up fruit and flower designs.

Imprint exhibition continues until 21st September.

Marimekko pear tea towels

I saw these great pear tea towels by Marimekko today, for sale in Heals:

I love the simplicity of the design.

I've been a fan of Marimekko before I saw these images. Marimekko is a design company from Finland who hand-screenprinted all their textiles during the 1960s.  Perhaps their most well-known design is this one, called Unikko, designed by Maija Isola:

One thing I love about Marimekko designs is that although they are now a global textile and interior design company, their designs are brilliantly simple and look like they could be printed at home by hand - those pear designs could be printed with a stencil or screenprinted with a couple of paper stencils. And I mean that as a compliment - as I say, I love the simplicity of these designs.