I am going to be spending quite a bit of time with this image for the next couple of months. Inspired by a mid century vibe, I created this image of a Bistro table a couple of years ago. It is the image I have decided to use for a course on Silk Screen Printing. I love printing of all sorts but Silk Screen needs a lot of equipment and a lot of space and I am more than a little rusty.
There is a lovely coincidence. theoldmortuary.design. Me in my arty world, is doing a printing course that is being held in an old mortuary. Somewhat larger and posher than our Old Mortuary.
This is a city mortuary 200 years old and with beautiful wipe clean walls and fancy detailing. Ours was a country holding space. Two bodies max and immediately outside the Churchyard.
Our mortuary had a glitterball and rather delightfully so does this one.
I’m going to be making 3 screens and printing on coloured paper giving me a finished image made up of four colours. But that is a long way off. This week I am working out my colour blocks on tracing paper and colouring them in by hand.
So far I have done 3 tracing paper masques like the one below.
My homework for the week.
Just to check all areas had been blocked out I stuck them together on a light box and photographed them. Tracing paper is slippery stuff and contact between the 3 was not consistant. But the resulting photograph has something about it, maybe a little ghostly and with a Victorian flavour.
The blacks are going to need to be a lot blacker so this is just a transition stage but I quite like the sensation of this image and that it reflects the age of the room it was created in.
And really quite different from an early morning coffee meeting.
I am rather intrigued to see how many transitions this image takes on in the next 6 weeks. It might all end in tears, but in this instance it is all about the journey and not the destination.
