This week I’ve been doing screen printing during my time at The Leeway, and OMG (!!!) do I love the pieces I produced. My intention was to rework some initial prints I did about a month ago which I wasn’t happy with. I cut a few simple stencils at home using craft paper and decided to print multiple layers over the same paper and see where things would end up.

I tried screen printing for the first time about a month ago, and only now do I realize I didn’t share any of that work on my blog (but I did post it to Instagram). I was given a lesson in screen printing stencils by Vanessa Hall-Patch, the Shop Technologies Coordinator at The Leeway studio. She is an expert at printing processes and I feel lucky to have access to her advice and knowledge as I mess about.

The first set of prints above ended up being about six layers of ink using three different stencils. I made my decisions about colour and composition on the fly, and used remains of ink Vanessa brought for me from the print making studio downstairs. It was enjoyable to have access to so much colour!

The second batch of prints has five layers of ink and was done with three stencils (two are identical because I cut multiples at the same time). I worked in the same way as the first batch of prints, making things up as I went and stuck with the same colour scheme because I liked it. This series of prints is my favourite of the two.

My original intention was to rework these prints with more colour and texture, and eventually transform the paper into a three dimensional object. Now I like them as they are, and I’m not sure if I will go ahead with my plan.