Wrapping Paper, Bags and Tags

With my end of year show coming up I started to think of a few ways to sell some of my work. Between us we organised an exhibition shop. I wanted to make things that didn't take a lot of time, and that I could just do alongside my Uni work.So as I had my screens up and running, I bought some brown paper, plain tote bags and parcel tags and began printing. It took hardly any time and was a really valuable way of finding out how people would respond to my work.

The Beetroot Print.

This one was my favourite, and the easiest to print. It instantly had a vintage type look. I was also really happy with the "watering can" green, it fit the theme!

The Chilli Print.

This was the second print, taken from a chilli drawing. Again I experimented with colours and surfaces to print on. I wish I had done more of this, the more sampling the better your final outcomes are likely to be. Plus I would have had more prints to make things out of for the exhibition shop!

The Onion Print.

I decided on three prints to use for my final pieces. Experimenting with materials was fun, I tried to use fabrics that suited my theme; Hessian, sacking, natural fabrics, brown paper, greaseproof, dress makers paper, cardboard etc etc! I also experimented over-printing in a darker tone of the same colour, this worked well. 

Print! Print! Print!

Finally getting to the printing stage of the project was exciting and stressful! I'm glad I left a good few weeks to print, 'cos like nearly everything else in textiles if you think it should take 2 hours you're gonna loose a day at least!  

I experimented with a few colours at first, but was happiest with my earthy tones. I wanted to experiment more with pastel colours, but mixing (as we only had a few colours and a dodgy yellow that someone had ruined with green, Grrr!) was taking too much time. I experimented with different papers and fabrics (always gets you more marks!) and greaseproof paper, which is what I've used in the pics above worked beautifully!

Drawings + Photoshop = Patterns!

I scanned in all my drawings and started playing on Photoshop to make patterns. I probably spent too much time at this, it can be really time consuming and a bit addictive because the possibilities are endless. 

Looking back I should have narrowed down the best results sooner and got on to perfecting and then printing those. Especially as screen-printing (with the small screens we had at uni) is so time consuming, I should have allocated more time for experimenting with colour ways, fabrics etc. Ah well live and learn!

Cabbage Drawings

I made some more drawings of fruit and vegetables and particularly liked drawing cabbages. I made a book from my cabbage drawings. I painted with drawing ink and water that was left over from cooking red cabbage. To add definition to quite abstract paintings I followed the watery marks created with an inky fine liner.