"That print is bizarre!"

Screenprinting is great. It's messy, you get ink stains all over your hands and it's both simple and magic. What more could you want? A day in the print room resulted in a very tired, dirty and stressed Lisa (but that's how a normal day usually ends) and meant I produced a series of screen prints onto some rather expensive silk. Here are my favourites from the workshop...

My Pattern and Print heroes

During my third technical block - Print - we were asked to think about how people wear print, and make it their own, and to dedicate a blog post especially to these people. So i've come up with a list of my favourite print-mixing people, first up: Karen O.

I've always looked up to eccentric women, and Karen O has to be one of the best at putting together some of the craziest, brightest stage costumes out there!

Second up is my favourite lady and infact person ever to live... Bjork!

Never one to shy away from the limelight or play down her eccentric, quirky personality, Bjork uses print as a statement onstage to reflect her powerful, unique voice. I love her!

My third favourite print wearer of all time is no other than Grayson Perry (or Claire, it's up to debate).

The pictures say it all really! 

 

Yayoi Kusama rocks print AND champions her own work at the same time by wearing her own creations everywhere she goes.What a babe.

Print Print Print

To put it simply, digital printing has always scared me. Me and Technology have never been friends, especially not me and PhotoShop, but print this week has been ok! CAD is something which i'd really like to master.

Here's my collection of print samples (using my very basic PhotoShop skills)

The first three prints were made up of layers and layers of the same drawing to create what has resulted in being quite a mad print...

The following print stands alone as a sample for the simple reason that i'm not quite sure it work, but anyhow is an experiment on combining two completely different drawings...

I like the following two prints- I think it works in both hues of greens and purples (but still hurts the eyes a little)...

The final three I created are attempts at creating more structured prints that would work as repeats...

 Overall, i've enjoyed my taster into the world of digital print. (I still think i'm more of a messy, get paint all over your hands worker though!)

Pop-Up Drawing, Round Two...

The second solid week of drawing to inform our second technical blocks (mine being Stitch) involved some more experiment drawing methods like a collage class with the lovely Tim and a day which involved inventing new products from our collection of objects (hence the cutlery made of branches)...

Branch cutlery!

Branch cutlery and a matching mug and saucer, made of a waxed leaf (naturally)...

Dissection of a branch...

Drawing asif to create stencils...

More inventions based on my collection of branches and leaves...

Cutting, sticking, painting and basically making a mess to re-create 'textures', in my case ones found within nature, proved one of my favourite drawing days so far (largely because i'm still a child)

My intentions are to reflect on these textural collages in stitch to create some more abstract samples.

Knitting Knitting Knitting

The first of four technical blocks went well (I think!)

Here are some of my more successful outcomes, created using the magical and wonderful knitting machine that is practically a godsend if you're wanting a jumper/scarf and QUICK.

Obviously, I got rather obsessed with mixing two or three colours together...

Examples of laceholing and playing around with tension...

Laddering/striping combo!

My favourite samples! Colour pallett to the left drawn from burnt orange autumnal leaves and the branches they were attached to, and the right based on some lovely plants uprooted and stolen from a rather posh garden in Chelsea...

Experimenting with single, double and tri-colour stripes.

Whilst machine knitting was okay, hand knitting was a rather different story. Staying up till 1am watching ''How to cast on'' tutorials isn't my idea of fun... But I got into the swing of it eventually!


An attempt at knitting with string- it went okay apart from the casting off part which I just can't seem to get the hang of and remember!

I actually managed to cast off this sample! (After a great deal of struggle and some help but never the less)!

This sample was an attempt at merging both knit and pearl stitches with a really thick yarn- maybe too thick to knit with on reflection...

All in all I really liked knitting, and was really surprised at all the different techniques a person can try on the knitting machine. I'll definitely be considering this as my chosen specialism!