Take your time...

Lino and roller by Jo Howell

Forward thinking has helped me to decide to diversify my practise, as in the past I have always made one-off items which can be expensive. Since Christmas isn't too far off I thought I would have a go at lino printing so I can make hand printed Christmas cards that I can sell at Sunniside market or in the Creative Cohesion Gallery.

Lino Test 1 by Jo Howell

It makes sense to try to make smaller more craft like items for people to buy as gifts, I have learnt this through experience, as last year I only made a couple of sales of my larger works. Christmas is a hard time for everyone so every penny counts! I found that the actual carving of the lino was really quite hard work, but the results definitely inspired me enough to want to continue with the plan.

Lino Test 2 by Jo Howell

As you can see there are a number of ways that you can present the print, incorporating colour in the background, or in fact printing in multiple colours. I will keep the designs very stylised and made of simple shapes, some text and colour. If you want to buy hand printed Christmas cards once I have made them all (watch this space) or come down to the Creative Cohesion building where Maverickart is based.

Until next time....

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Beautiful Marilyn

The Marilyn Monroe Screen drying the screen filler by Jo Howell

I am very pleased to say that I have broadened my horizons and started to create some work using screen printing techniques. To get the feel for the process again I decided to do a simple design taken from an older body of work called "Cut Out and Keep" to experiment with.

I opted for the drawing fluid option and then filled the screen with screen filler, I then washed out the drawing fluid to create a positive Marilyn image when printed.

Test on paper by Jo Howell

After a few paper tests I decided to prepare some canvas to create a run of fine art prints. I used water colour paints in a light wash and splashed indian ink over them to create some background texture and colour.

Washes by Jo Howell

After a lot of patience, waiting around and twiddling thumbs, the backgrounds were dry enough to try printing on. I used water based fabric paint to screen print Marilyn onto the canvas, I then used an electric heater to set the print.

Marilyn print run by Jo Howell

I was really pleased with the results, and I cannot wait to try out the photo-sensitive screen emulsion to combine my photography with my fine art ideas! This year looks to be an exciting year for experimentation and investigations.

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Until next time....