Thinking origami #2: The Coot

More patterns developed from origami shapes. See what happened to the little boat here.

Screenprinting weekend #4: Collective print

Details of a collective work from latest screenprinting workshop at Liz Nilsson's studio, made by the people that took part in the workshop: Marie, Cristina, Sinead, Cliona, Cecile and me.

Screenprinting weekend #3: A work in progress

As I mentioned in this post, in the latest screenprinting workshop at Liz Nilsson's I had very ambitious project in mind, and this was the printing of a square tablecloth (160x160 cm) with a border of my own design (see planned layout in the last picture here).

But with less than one quarter of the project completed I had to give up because my stencil was worn out. Too many repetitions! Now my tablecloth patiently waits the moment I have a photographic exposed screen so it can be completed.

Thinking origami #1: The Boat

Let me introduce a series of posts where I'll present some of the patterns I've been creating lately. They are all based on origami shapes and are intended as ideas for future screenprints. The boat is one of my favourites and I really enjoyed playing around with it. Here it is the original shape:

                              

Then the boat starts swinging around... and creates patterns like these:

A bit of colour added...

And a layout for a tablecloth, which is now a work in progress:

Screenprinting weekend #2: Making holes

Some images of effects obtained with newspaper and a paper punch during the latest screenprinting workshop at Liz Nilsson's studio.

Screenprinting weekend #1: the Japanese paper

You might wonder what I'm doing in the pictures above, and if you had asked me on the spot I would had told you 'I don't know!'
I was again at Liz Nilsson's studio for another wonderful 2-day screenprinting workshop and the stencil I have prepared for my very ambitious project had let me down (I'll talk about this in another post). So I was experimenting with a piece of Japanese paper I had bought at Daintree paper shop in Dublin. I put it on my cotton fabric and printed with an open screen over it, mixing drops of yellow and green dye directly on the screen. It's a pity I didn't keep the dyed paper to see how it looks when dry (I threw it away, oh stupid me) but here is how the printed fabric looks. Not bad, isn't it?

 

More and more screenprinting!

I did it again. Another screenprinting workshop! I was really looking forward, since these workshops at Liz Nilsson's studio are the only chances to do some screeprinting. I have bought some materials from Selectasine but unfortunately I don't have a suitable space to do this kind of job in my current apartment. I've promised myself that the next place I am renting will be screenprinting friendly, but for the moment I have to resign myself to my carpet covered little apartment and make the most of these workshops.
This time we worked for two consecutive full days. The first day we learned how to make our own screens, so there was a bit of woodwork involved -great fun- and different ways of getting a design ready for photographic exposure. I took loads of notes about this. All those possibilities of making marks are so exciting. These are some images of the first day, with me sandpapering my very first screen and some experiments for a design to be transfered onto a screen.



Then on the second day we were doing the actual screenprinting. I was trying a mask I had prepared the night before. The idea of that day was to  choose a painting by Paul Klee and develop a design from it. My design was only very loosely inspired by one of his paintings. Let's say that he composed his painting with square shapes only, and my design was generated from a square shape.
My initial idea was to print a geometrical pattern by repeating my motif in one colour. This is the first result:






Then I developed a second idea for a more complex image. These are some images of the different stages. I used a combination of experimental techniques to get different textures: printing with a grid and lace under the fabric, making creases in the fabric before printing,  using newsprint and cotton thread as masks, printing with a stamp here and there, dropping a contrasting dye  directly on the screen to get a marbled effect etc.








This is at a nearly final stage, after printing my pattern.



And this is the finished piece and some detail pictures:

Random screenprinting #3

This is another example of my experiments with screenprinting during Liz Nilsson's workshop. In this case I put a piece of plastic lace under the fabric and then printed with green dye using an open screen.

Random screeprinting #2

Another experiment from Liz Nilsson's screenprinting workshop. I was trying to use in a different way the screen with circles I had prepared for this design, and somehow the mesh got blocked so I got these 'faulty' print with some not printed spots. It's one of those frequent cases when chance makes things better :-)

Random screenprinting #1

This is another screenprint I made at Liz Nilsson's workshop in her Dublin studio. I started printing a monochromatic base (lime green), then added some spots of colour with a rubber stamp, dropped some dye with a brush, and finally I overprinted the whole area with dark green using newspaper strips as a mask. And this is what came out  of my messy experiments. I had fun in the process but somehow I didn't like the result. The other people in the workshop were very enthusiastic though, but I couldn't stop being very critical. I couldn't see any good point in it . I suppose it's one of those moments you aren't able to step back and look at your work in a more objective way. Now, two months later, I appreciate it more. I see it more as a whole and think less whether the colour is the green I wanted, or if every spot is on the right place. And I gave it a title: 'Can't see the forest for the trees'.