Finally got my PrintHaus membership at the end of August and even though I was quite impatient, it was definitely worth the wait! The first thing I wanted to print was the lettering design I've been working on for my parents 25th wedding anniversary.
I've had this print in pipeline since June, but only recently have I had the facilities to make it real.
I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted for this print, at least in terms of the ink and paper. Simple black paper with a fine, silvery design to play on the traditional name for twenty five years of marriage in the UK.
Last year, I designed a simple print to celebrate the first year of my relationship with my boyfriend Tristan. My mom saw this and thought it was for her, having discovered shortly after that this wasn't the case, she put in a commission for a print for the following year. The quote she picked reads "A perfect marriage is just two imperfect people who refuse to give up on each other".
The design is meant to go off the page and occupy the entire space, with flourishes acting as a frame for the lettering in the centre. I had originally intended to print onto paper that was larger than the design and crop it down once dry, unfortunately for me I'd bought paper that was the exact size of the print, which made lining up extremely difficult (but not impossible!).
(Clockwise, Left to Right) The design on the screen, the super awesome Silver ink and a glimpse of the resulting print.
I've got a real thing for line weight variation, the transition from heavy to very fine to me looks wonderful, but can cause some trouble when screen printing...
As with the Clive Colledge print I did back in January, the very thinnest lines in the design were the biggest issue, with the ink drying in the screen after just one pull, meaning I had to clean out the screen more frequently.
The silver ink I used here was spectacular. Runny, didn't have to mix it with anything and so opaque. The finish on the final print looks great and I really owe it to my friend at PrintHaus, Alyn Smith, who introduced me to it.
The final print.
I did say that I was going to be more proactive about using this blog but seeing as my last post was in July, I don't think I'm doing too well...
Once I've settled into my shifts at work, I should eventually be posting more about new work, commissions and lecturing topics.