YES

I don't want to work anymore, I want to own one of these. Someone buy me one!

Back Again...

Just a quick post to give you an update as to what I have been getting up to. Today I successfully coated a screen without dropping it all over the floor. I have also been taught about the process of bleach printing, devore printing and discharge printing. A lot to take in about chemicals and poisons but all extremely helpful and useful. I  am exposing my second screen tomorrow and then its onto creating my layers of print and hopefully coming up with something successful! 

Trying to come up with some ideas to create layers and things.

Layering up the koda traces to see how a print could look.

Not a good photo of the devore but you get the idea.

Uni Work Is Mounting...

See I really am turning over a new leaf I have come back to blog in less than a week. So I have now been back to uni for a week, and it is safe to say I have learnt quite a bit of stuff since being back. Not only have I learnt how to strip and re-coat a screen I now know how to expose one too! So much excitement. I have got a few photos taken on my phone that I have decided to post. It began by having to piece together some sort of design out of all my koda traces. I am used to taking a few images and then building up to create a pattern not coming up with a pattern that could be just printed in one go to create a print so that was a little bit odd for me, but never the less it was quite fun to experience a different way of working.

Just some of my imagery getting ready to play around.

Starting to build up some pattern and seeing what looked most effective.

Continuing to build up the pattern before finally....

Exposing my own screen which was so much fun! (Sorry for the upside down photograph) I have done something a little bit silly though. I covered up 2 of the large holes with the triangles in a mad panic and forgot that I would not be able to print through them.. silly me but these things happen I will just have to work around it.

Tomorrow I am exposing a new set of imagery that I can isolate parts off and create pattern through experimentation ( the way I like to print) rather than having to create a pattern to be used for one pull through a screen. 

I also experience a new type of printing called open screen printing. This is where you paint dye directly onto a clean screen it can be anything you would like and then using a special seaweed paste pull it over the painting and thus leaving the design you have created. I decided to go with 2 simple brush strokes as I wanted it to be used as another layer of colour rather than having a dramatic image that would be covered up by my imagery anyway...

So there it is for some reason it looks green in this photo but it is actually a dark grey. I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on a squeedgy and coming up with some hopefully interesting designs.. Who knows only time will tell.

Its been a VERY long time!

So it has been over a month since I posted on here I am totally shocked. I did not even post a Christmas post not good enough! Nearly had this up for a year now crazy stuff. So it was all a little bit manic at the end of last term emotions were running high and everyone could not wait to be going home. I should have lots to show you but it has all been going a little bit slow so I have not had many exciting things to write about other than getting a 2:1 on my first VMC essay!! Still working on a print project but having been off for 3 weeks yesterday was our first day back. So it was the realisation that I have 3 weeks in which to produce work worthy of a grade! Anyway today I decided enough was enough and as part of my new years resolution I am going to make a lot more of an effort to keep my blog up and running! So today was spent in the print room, dyeing 50 samples of fabric well eventually there will be 50 trying to match the colours we had chosen all those weeks ago!

All the dyes non diluted. 

Mixing bowl, trusty spoon, various mixes of colours and paintbrush.

Trying to create a gradient effect on the fabric sample. And trying to get the correct shade of grey without it going a little bit purple!

Not a very good photo it looks green but I can assure you that it is in fact a lovely grey, that I applied with a paintbrush to get the different shades to get a smokey sort of effect.

And the bit I have been most looking forward to since starting my course! I now know how to strip my own screens yay! And tomorrow we are learning how to coat them before exposing them on Wednesday. I will hopefully have lots to blog and show you over the next few weeks fingers crossed that my imagery is good enough to create some lovely prints!