Screenprinting experiments!

I've been meaning for a while to get into screenprinting, as a way of reproducing artwork.

I did an induction at a local print room, and a few months ago, my boyfriend bought me a screen for my birthday.

Finally I have had a little bit of time to play with it!

First I attempted printing through a stencil. I cut my design out of layout paper, and tried printing onto a couple of greetings cards. The result was ok, but after a couple of prints, the stencil started creasing and let ink bleed through.

This took far too long!

After 3 prints, the stencil was poor. The first 2 were alright though!

Next, I had a go at using some screen drawing fluid to paint the design onto the screen. Then using screen filler I blocked out the rest. I think I need some practice though, as the result was fairly disastrous. I then spent well over an hour trying to get the screen filler off the screen...

I'll try again another day.

On the plus side, I then had a little play about with printing through some random bits and bobs, and quite like some of the results.

Getting experimental!

New Blogger app...

Just having a go at the new Blogger app to see how it works...

Here's a sneaky peak at what I'm up to!

My Veg! (Mostly Tomatoes..)

Every year I try to grow some veg of some kind. This year the operation has been a little scaled back. I've been a bit too busy to grow lots of stuff, so I just stuck to hassle-free crop of tomatoes (and a couple of chilli plants, and some potatoes)...

The fruits have started ripening now, and I harvested my first little cherry tom the other day. Naturally I was very excited!

Scoffed these two red ones with my dinner - they were lovely

I'm always amazed when I look at before and after photos of how much the plants have grown over the course of the year. I've not even been growing them for that long this year, and  still they've overwhelmed their space!

Plants arrive early June and I pot them up

Early July - Within a month they've grown up!

Late August - First cherry tomatoes ripen

A good crop!

Exhibition Submissions

The Great Yarmouth Society of Artists hold their annual exhibition every September. I usually submit 2 or 3 paintings that i've done throughout the year. 

This year however, i'm a bit short on work, but i've managed to dredge up some old work that I really rather like. 

Here's a sneak preview before I get it framed

Detail

Detail

To see the rest of my work, and the work of the other artists (they really do put me to shame, they produce some awesome artwork) come along to the annual exhibition at Great Yarmouth Library - 10-17 September 2011.

Great Yarmouth town centre mural - 2003

Recently, due to a bit of a time shortage, I’ve been a little short of any recent personal work to post up here. (Or make it look pretty...)

However, I was fishing through my old photos and found some photos of a mural that I designed and painted with the help of a couple of friends in 2003, just before my art foundation course.

Tesco had recently shut down in the town centre, leaving their premises boarded up and unsightly.


I worked in the pub opposite at the time, and the landlord had gained permission to paint the boards that covered the store windows. We felt that in such a prime location, (open to the market place, next to a car park, and viewable from most of the major bus routes) having such a large area boarded up, especially at the height of summer, with many tourists about, gave a very depressing view of the town.
 

We were given free reign to do what we wanted with the four boards. So I chose to do a brightly coloured abstract pattern. I didn’t want to do anything too complicated, due to time constraints, (and the cost of paint) and swirls are fairly inoffensive. 

To our amazement, throughout the time they were up, there was only one, very tiny piece of graffiti!

So... this is it...

I have finally entered the world of blogging, inspired by so many interesting blogs. I thought it would be a great idea to make my own, share with people my inspiration, illustrations and showcase my work.

I'll share links about art, design, craft, and growing my own... amongst sneak previews into what i've been up to, and the work i've been producing.