Monday 25 May 2009

Screen printing: not a buscraft

Yesterday, I went to one of the Handmade socials at Urbis- it was a session about how to screen print run by Ayesha Ansari, an enthusiastic community artist. I knew I wanted to make a stencil from one of P's photos, but Ayesha thought it was too small, so I added the house to it.

Screen printing is really fun. Ayesha's enthusiasm for it is catching! I'm glad I went to a session where I could try it out, because I've read about it but didn't understand the process until yesterday. The whole point of the screen is to hold the stencil in place. We just used thick paper for the stencils, but I can see how a plastic one would be more durable. I'm now wondering about using confetti, leaves or feathers; and could you use a thick screen, like a bit of hessian, to have a patterned painted section?

It is tempting to buy some basic equipment, but I think I need to let the ideas brew for a while. Lots of other stuff in the pipe already, but if I can find space for a screen in my craft area I suspect it will go on my wish list.

And for the buscraft report: I've now roughed out 11 pages, but finding it very slow. I hadn't realised how mentally taxing the layout of the comic book would be, and honestly, I'm just not at my sharpest first thing in the morning or right after work. Twice I've thought I should just put it away and try something else, but then had fresh ideas and made progress with the comic again. Frustrating. I'm going to stick at it this week (just 4 days) and maybe next weekend try to finish this stage off.



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