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Screen prints

two layers waterbased ink on calico fabric
Two full days of screen printing practise has left me with an aching back but considerably more skill at getting nice clean crisp prints,some of which are multilayered and multicoloured.  I like screen prints, I like the clean sharpness they have but because of that I find them hard to work into with embellishment.  And.. the truth is I really like the embellishment business more then the printing...This difficulty is further compounded by my chosen design being very busy - lots of line work and detail, so because of that I decided to spend some time masking out lot of the detail and trying a different approach to the print finish.
In the end after careful consideration I masked out most of my 'bottom' layer-  some very busy linework  originating from a tall ships drawing - and immediately the prints started to look tidier.

silver foil on black velvet
I also spent quite a lot of time experimenting with different fabric bases, trying to stick with natural fibres - cotton velvets, pure cotton, canvas, some linen and several different colourways.  It was interesting seeing how the different colours worked on different bases and also how the pattern and colours could be lifted using foils.  When we did screen printing last time I didn't get time to use foils much but I have tried lots of different colour combinations this time as part of the effect I want to achieve is a south east Asia / oriental bling look....

I have different sized prints to experiment with but as always they start to look less exciting and over worked after two weeks messing around so I have put them to one side and concentrated on making, writing and posting christmas cards... a labour of love - a satisfying fun job now completed


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