studio thoughts

2 plate etching

succulent blossom in sepia

etching press

APW studio

my work area - blood bath!

studio buddy's work area

drying rack

I've made my first use of the Australian Print Workshop's (APW) beautiful print studio. What a fun day! For me it was mostly about process and practice, and getting a better feel for the intaglio experience. As a relief printer and screen printer, intaglio is opening up a whole new, delicious world for me in printmaking. At the moment I'm just producing drypoint etchings. I have not worked up the courage to go near the acid bath and do anything that tricky.

Working in a communal print studio like APW's is a pretty wonderful experience. There was a collective buzz about the place as people went about their printing business, but also plenty of conversation and friendly advice for me when I asked questions. Mid morning an art tour group came through and watched us work. While that was a bit nerve-wracking it was also really good to talk to people who wanted to know more about printmaking.

One woman in the tour group asked me if working in a communal print studio had any benefits to working alone. Without a doubt I said yes. For example, yesterday I worked next to a monoprinter. I haven't done mono prints since high school, so for me to work next to my studio buddy all day was a wonderful way to revisit that process. And boy could she produce fantastic Goya-esque monoprints! There were other etching artists working there too so I was able to bug them with questions throughout the day about materials and process. And I got to see their prints together with mine on the drying boards. It was a lot of fun to see what concepts people are working with and how they resolve into prints.

One special treat I had was to work with an ancient etching press [pic 3 above] all day. What a beauty that old lady is! She's hard work to pull a print through but in many ways working like that is also very satisfying.

As you can see by the prints I made above I'm still working with botanical images, specifically succulent flowers. I'm a bit obsessed with the process and evolution of life at the moment and botanicals is the way I want to communicate the ideas I have about this. So there will be more to come!

ice blue

Sometimes you've got to go with the idea of 'less is more'. Even though the over-printing on the snow gum print was working out I decided that I wanted to have a single print of this design on linen as well. So I mixed up a nice ice blue this morning as an experiment. Then a printmaker on twitter, @meganjmcpherson, suggested that the coolness of the blue against the warmth of the linen worked because it does in nature. This was the image she used to make her case:

which kind of makes sense to me. So it's listed here in case it takes your fancy.

banksia pod red

My banksia pod tea towel is now available in a deep, dirty red after a morning spent screen printing. These are 100% linen and I've printed on both the warmer 'flax' type (pictured) and a slightly cooler 'oat'. So you can take your pick. I'll be listing the oat one in the shop later today. If you haven't tried these towels before then you're in for a treat. The quality in Russian linen is exquisite and will soften over time as it's used and washed and loved.

wallpaper love

photo credit: Emma Byrnes




photo credit: Emma Byrnes


photo credit: Emma Byrnes

There was a lot of love going on in the Harvest Workroom yesterday. The three of us (Emma, Anna and me) carved lino blocks, listened to music, sipped tea, listened to the rain fall on the tin roof, chatted away about life, the universe & everything, ate good food, AND printed wallpaper. Yep it's amazing what three people can achieve in one day when you're having that much fun.

If you'd like to make your own wallpaper why not join us for the wallpaper class coming up at Harvest? Click here for more info.

More pics of the printmaking process here and here.

hand printed wallpaper

Rainy days can be surprisingly productive.

Block printed wallpaper test strips: succulent blossom in silvery grey and red. Two different blocks were used for each one because the red one has the motif in lines and the grey is more randomly distributed across the paper. The grey one looks even better than the photos make out. I can see how this print would work in a bedroom; really soft and delicate.

I had Jen Cloher and then The Waifs playing in the background to help me get into the groove.

a little bit deco

My design prep for a 3-colour repeat screen printing workshop with Harvest Textiles at I&S studios tomorrow. I think I'm going to use this motif I designed and put together using luscious black sumi ink. The repeat you can see in the background is what it looked like once I scanned it into Photoshop and played with the colour. I wanted to get an idea of how it might look in repeat before I committed to it big time on fabric. I'll be adding one more colour to the mix. Should be so much fun!

all things blossom-like

And this is what the block printed succulent blossom fabric was used for - pajama pants. And not even for me I might add.

Speaking of succulents, I was mezmerised by the light and shadow play on my living room wall a few mornings ago. Dried succulent flowers (a different kind to those in the pjs) were responsible for the lovely shadows. Don't you just love autumn light?

succulent blossom en masse

It's really interesting how doing something repetitive for a long period of time can be strangely meditative. And I think it has to do with your frame of mind at the time and how you choose to see the task. This 1.7 x 1.2m piece of light-weight cotton fabric took me hours to block print my succulent blossom design yesterday afternoon, but oddly enough I enjoyed it. I didn't focus on my aching arms or the time. Instead I just went with the flow. I thought I might stop half way through and do the rest today but once I got into the rhythm it was strangely addictive. And moving about the fabric also kept me warm when I knew the room was becoming chilly. The hardest part was navigating a hungry cat who kept getting under foot for about the last 40 mins.

Then I baked an apple cake and had a glass of red as a little reward.

succulent flowers in red

Succulent flowers in red block printed by hand on cotton/linen blend fabric.

I had a lot of fun printing this piece. Unfortunately the light in these pics (especially that third one, what's going on there I wonder) makes the base fabric look slightly pink. Rest assured it's not. Instead it's a lovely natural shade. More like ivory. I have a piece printed with the succulent flowers in black ink that I'm tempted to sew into a skirt. I like the idea of using it in one panel at the front and perhaps the rest of the skirt in a dark light-weight denim. Sewers out there - is this idea a bit crazy?

layers - day 2

Day 2 of workshop - more layering of the prints we started on day 1. It was really freeing and playful to work like this. No plans, no expectations, just experimentation with a range of stencils we'd cut.Day 2 repeat print - when I signed up for the workshop I decided that I needed to loosen up my usual design style a bit and that this would be a good chance to work quite differently. Get out of my comfort zone if you will. I usually work quite tightly and on a fairly small scale. So working with the banksia ink drawings I'd done on day 1 I decided to design a fairly loose abstract repeat pattern print with some of those ideas. I used a cotton base cloth that was 'stone' in colour. Choosing and mixing the right coloured ink to print with was challenging though. I think the colour I made was too light in the end - a pale pistachio. It think this design might look quite different if printed in black.

I can't recommend this 2 day workshop enough. It's run by Harvest Textiles and they're just so lovely. Lara, our teacher for the weekend was as patient and knowledgeable about printmaking as they come. And we got such a buzz from being a small group of people doing this together. If you want to learn some basics about textile printing then this is the place to do it.

layers

Layers of screen printing on fabric. Screens made from hand cut stencils while at day 1 of the wonderful Harvest Textiles 2 day printing workshop. The deep red coloured design was inspired by banksia pods. It was so lovely to be in the beautiful Ink & Spindle studio all day today printing these. More printing tomorrow too :)

hozuki cushion

All finished as of this morning: hozuki screen print cushion cover. Printed on a natural cotton/linen blend fabric. I know the hozuki pattern is quite bold and might not be to everyone's liking but it sure does give that old green arm chair of ours a lift. We've been meaning to get that chair (and its pair) recovered for several years now. See this previous post for an explanation of hozuki.

hanabi shirt in chocolate brown

I know it must seem like all I ever do lately is print hanabi in different ways on different fabrics. One of my work colleagues even suggested I could keep going and make a whole range of clothes with hanabi. But that would be kind of wacky. In my defense I will say that I printed this one a while ago when it was called particles but today I sewed it into this shirt.
I'm calling this one hanabi shirt in chocolate brown. Now for all you super nifty sewers out there I have to let you know something - I made this without a pattern! Yep, that's right, I free-wheeled it and just cut the fabric out around a shirt I've had for years and really like. It was definitely scary to do this. I kept thinking, oh man you are going to mess this up. And I will say it's not perfect. BUT it does have lining inside it! I've never put lining in anything before so that was kind of interesting. I bought this super soft light-weight natural coloured cotton lining because I wanted the shirt to feel really soft against my skin. It took ages for me to work out how to do it so that it looked as nice on the inside (well almost) as it does on the outside (I'm talking stitching here) but I got there eventually. And I made friends with my iron. I had no idea how useful an iron can be with sewing.
This pic is just to prove my story about the lining. Just in case you thought I was fibbing or something.

hanabi print in grey

This time I printed hanabi in grey on a new black light-weight denim skirt I made yesterday. I decided to print the motif down the centre of the skirt and I think it works. I had a few issues with printing yesterday but I'm pretty sure I've sorted it out now. These things are all trial and error :)

I made the skirt a bit loose to allow for the 4% shrinkage when it's heat set. Fingers crossed it will fit more snuggly once that's done.

all stitched up

This post is a bit of a show and tell because I've made my first skirt ever! And what's more surprising is I even like it :) It's made from very dark light-weight denim with a very simple pattern that falls just below the knee. But it does have a zip! This is a big deal as it took 5 goes on crappy fabric for me to get it right. I patiently unpicked the mistakes very time to re-use the zip until I finally understood how to do it properly. I listened to about 4 podcasts from craft sanity while I was sewing so I had good company. The skirt's not finished yet as I plan to screen print either hanabi or dragonflies on the front of it when I get around to repairing my silk screen after it spontaneously burst 2 nights ago. I think this top from Queen (swoon) looks perfect with it.

Edit a few hours later: I printed hanabi on the skirt (see 2nd pic). It took 3 layers of red to get it to stand out like that on the denim because it's so dark. I was saved by Jezze's innovative credit card method of screen printing.

chocolate and teal

While I was printing particles in chocolate brown on fabric last weekend I decided to also print some cards for the shop. I printed some in single colours and others with two colours: chocolate and teal.
My beloved favours the single coloured teal ones whereas I prefer the cards with two colours. What do you think?

I plan to print on fabric again this weekend but this time with a different design. I picked up some small fabric samples during the week which should be perfect to use. And I'm so so so tempted to buy a second hand sewing machine.

red

As weird as this may sound, I'm convinced that I enjoy the cutting of paper stencils as much as printing itself with screen printing. It's labour intensive for sure, but somehow so meditative. This one took me a while to cut but it wasn't overly painful.

And thanks to J & J I have Lena's new book Printing by Hand to keep me inspired. I scored it for my birthday last week :)