Last night my new colleague Gareth stayed behind at work to help me print my first 2 colour design “Spinning Wheels” from my residency at Armley Mills. My vision for my residency was to produce 5, 2 colour designs screenprinted onto 5m reams of fabric. Unfortunately I didn’t realise how much time the print process would take, the set up of each screen and the printing table is very lengthy and it’s definitely a two people job with each screen being 150cm x 101cm. I had also unfortunately designed all my fabrics as “cut throughs” i.e. a bit of the image at the top and bottom of each design. This means when hand printing it’s extremely difficult to line up. This is why there is a small gap in the repeat. So in order to finish these lengths properly will take a lot more work. However. It has been a fantastic learning experience. I have crammed in so much work in one month it’s been great to have a feeling of fulfillment, even if I didn’t manage my ultimate goal. And I’m really really happy with my first try at large scale design and screenprinting. Onwards and upwards!
