Creative Appetite Post: Screen Printing by Sunset

I was delighted to spy Nicola and Jairo start to set up their screen printing equipment towards the end of the cockney rhyming slang quiz. I had planned to pop by and see them the next and final morning, but here they were ready and able – perfect!

To speed up the process they had already created a selection of backgrounds and had a sizeable number of premade screen templates to select from. 

As the theme is story telling and they were being hosted by Katja’s Favourite Words exhibit, you selected a word from a box that appealed to you and worked with that as your inspiration.

I ended up liking some of their backgrounds tallied up with the words so much I bought three just as a series on their own. I chose a fourth along with the word “and” - a word I think I like more and more everyday.

I set about with the Duke and Duchess from the quiz creating layer upon layer of vivid colour and pattern. Hair drying each layer carefully to set the paint before applying the next one using a screen, special paints and a plastic squeegee. Excess paint was carefully kept for next time and after each run the screens were thoroughly cleaned to ensure they didn’t get clogged up and therefore unusable.

Nicola and Jairo

The process starts

And end of swipe

The Duchess has a go

Some other people's finished examples

 

Duke David's finished piece

I asked Nicola and Jairo for their top three concerns with screen printing and they said:

1. Getting a hole in your screen e.g. accidentally dragging a piece of stone with the squeegee.
2.  Having paint dry in the screens and have them damaged for future use.
3.  Accidentally destroying someone’s work e.g. ”flooding” it with ink.

We were all pretty pleased with our fading sun outcomes.

You can find more about Nicola and Jairo here.