Last weekend I visited Hello Print Studio in Margate.
It's run by Nick Morley and Emrys Plant. Nick, who is also sometimes known as linocutboy, showed me around the space... (He doesn't usually have a lamp attached to his head).
Hello Print Studio is part of Resort Studios, a space for creative people to work and share their work with the public through workshops, talks and exhibitions. Resort Studios was founded in 2013 with a vision of encouraging "experimentation and collaboration in an inspiring and professional environment" (http://www.resortstudios.co.uk/about/who-we-are/).
The print studio is a light, high-ceiling'd space with equipment for screenprinting, etching and relief printing.
When I visited they were getting ready to run a Gocco printing workshop.
I liked the small individual studios within the print studio, made of a collage of wood, glass and pieces of stained-glass windows and doors. Wouldn't it be inspiring to work in one of these?
It was impressive to see the hard work and vision that has gone into starting such a venture. The people and the space bring an exciting creative energy to Margate.
I am taking part in an exhibition in Brockley, South-East London, from tomorrow, the 13th February. The exhibition is Open cueB 2015, and I will be exhibiting this picture, "Drift I", which I made last year:
The exhibition will be open from 13th February to 15th March 2015, at: cueB Gallery, 325 Brockley Road, London SE4 2QZ, www.cuebgallery.com
I was happy to take part recently in the East London Printmakers' Box Set 2014 - where 30 or so members each make about 40 limited edition prints then distribute them in boxes and each have a set of prints by each artist who took part. There are no constraints of medium (as long as it's print) or subject, only the size of the paper - about 30 x 30 cm.
I took part in a half-studio and half-handmade printing way - I exposed a screen with images for my screen print in the studio, as I don't have an exposure unit at home, but then printed it at home using the screen in some clamps I had previously fixed onto a wallpaper pasting table...
One of the images I had taken to the studio (my print had 4 layers) didn't expose properly, so I did have to make that design by hand on the screen as well - painting it with drawing fluid and screen filler.
I don't usually print 40 pictures at a time, and I don't have a drying rack, so to dry the prints looked like this:
Every surface in my living room was covered with prints. I had to keep the cats and my son out of the area for the duration of the printing session!
Prints...
...and prints...
...and more prints...
This is what the completed print looks like... I call it 'Green Birds.'
In the last 2 weeks, in the fabric printing community class I teach, the students have been making lino prints...
and stencil prints...
Students in a fabric printing class I'm teaching started the term by making potato prints last week...
...these prints were made on paper with fabric ink (it's cheaper to experiment on paper than fabric), but potato prints can make effective block prints on fabric.
I have an old two-colour lino block which I use to make a print I call 'berries.'
I've always found it hard to register the two colours when printing (to get the second layer to fit in the right place on top of the first colour) although the two pieces of lino are similar shapes. So I tried gluing the lino blocks onto pieces of wood the same size, and putting a pencil dot at the corner of the block (on the fabric) each time I printed, to try and line up the second block in exactly the right place on top of where the first had printed. But that didn't work - the two prints were often still offset.
So I decided to make up a screen with the same design, to see if that was easier to register...
I made two screens on mesh stretched in embroidery hoops, and painted with screen drawing fluid then coated with screen filler. When they were dry, I washed out the drawing fluid under the tap.
Then I printed the first layer using fabric paint and a plastic card to spread the ink. That printed fine.
Then the second layer, placing the outlines of the berry shapes by eye on top of the blue dots of the berries, by looking through the holes in the screen and wiping the screen with a cloth in-between each print.
It did work. The outlines of the berries are a bit thick - this was ok in the lino prints but looks a bit crude somehow with the screen print. I could paint the second design on a screen again, with a finer paintbrush, but at least this way I was able to register the outline (pink) on top of the blob-shaped berries (blue).
