Out of Order - Artwork

I chose to develop a piece from my context of practice work for the Out of Order exhibition as I felt the image already fit the theme. The original image was painted in gouache but I really wanted to take the image into print, most likely screen print. 

To start, I used tracing paper to separate the layers of colour and add extra details to make the image a little more complex. I scanned in these layers and turned them into solid shapes on Photoshop. I played around with colours and liked that the overlapping of the shapes made new colours, this was why I was initially led to blue, yellow and red. 

I realised I didn’t want my print to be too bright so I explored some other colour schemes and decided to go ahead using different tones and shades blue. Then even more blue colours would be created from the overlaps. 

NO SCREENS. 

I had printed out my positives and went to the print room to coat a new screen but there were no screens available for another couple of days! I knew I needed to get these printed asap so I changed my plan to working with lino. 

Testing
I tried to make some mothers day cards as a kind of test for how I could do a multiple colour linoprint like this. I soon realised that the method of working I had initially thought would be fine didn't work with multiple layers of colour. The lines left from the cut away areas just built up from the layers of printing and the areas that were meant to be white were left looking messy. I abandoned this test and decided that for my exhibition print I would have to cut each shape out individually so there was no excess lino that could transfer unwanted ink onto my paper. 

For future reference - tests should ONLY be tests! Intending for these prints to be mothers day cards meant that I felt some pressure for them to go right, when really the testing process should be about finding things out and not expecting things to work perfectly first time. 

I bought some more lino and spent the evening cutting out each individual shape from each layer of my screen print positives - there were 35 pieces in total. 

DAY ONE PRINTING

I took this to print and things went pretty well. I used a reverse print of my original positives as registration sheets to line up all my lino pieces. 

Improvements

• I don’t like how many extra lines are visible on the prints where ink has transferred from cut-away pieces of lino. I am going to spend some time this evening cutting away even more to make sure they dont print. 
• I want to use a different colour, I like the blue but it doesn’t make much impact. I am going to print again tomorrow and use red instead. 

DAY TWO PRINTING

The outcomes from today were so much better. They looked a lot cleaner and more professional and I think the colour made a big impact on the overall image. I much prefer the black outline as oppose to a dark shade of the colour used for the rest of the print. 

I selected my best prints, I has three good red ones and I chose my best three blue ones too. I framed one red one and packaged up the other five to be sold at the exhibition. I am really pleased with the red outcomes but am less confident in the blue ones, 

PROMOTION

I have been posting on social media the process of making these prints and am posting a few pieces of promotional material in the lead up to the exhibition. 

I took leaflets to the Headingley communication box exhibition and spread the word there too. I have also sent an email to Ruth who I worked closely with on this project to send a direct invitation.