Shellsuit

This work began as an experimentation into screen printing. 

I had produced some drawings from silicone, and scanned them before exposing them to a screen. I then created a number of screen prints on various papers in a range of colours. 

As the prints were drying, I saw them layered on top of one another, creating depth and forming interesting colour relations.

The colours of the prints remind me of a specific item of clothing that my Mum owned in the 1980s/ early 1990s. 

The item of clothing in question was a Reebok shellsuit. I vividly remember Mum wearing it every Monday evening when she went to the sports centre to play badminton.

I recall the rustling sound it made and how the fabric felt to the touch. Just seeing the combination of colours in the screen prints brought back many memories.

Screenprinting, mark-making experiments

Over the past few days I have enjoyed spending time in the printmaking workshop doing some screen printing.

The images that I exposed to the screens included a number of scanned mark making experiments that I did with silicone on different surfaces, a pencil drawing, and a few ink drawings of the little sculptures that I have been making.

So far I have concentrated on printing the mark making experiments, and have been testing printing on different materials and using different combinations of colours.

With the image above, I printed onto tissue paper and the delicate tissue paper stuck to the screen as the vacuum on the print bed was not working. When I peeled it off, the crumpled mark left on the screen was interesting, and so when printing the next image I did not flood the screen, but allowed the squeegee to pull through the remains of the ink left from the previous image, leaving the pattern of the crumpled tissue paper. 

Watching silicone move

Over the past couple of days I have been filming the pouring of silicone over different surfaces.

I'm interested in the contrast of materials, the glossy surface of silicone against matt cardboard, soft foam, delicate tissue paper or shiny metal.

I have been filming the blurring of colours as the silicone forms paths down a surface, and then the dripping of silicone as it reaches the edge. These change as the silicone becomes more viscose with the passing of time.

Tissue paper cones

As I previously mentioned, I had an impulse to make some tissue paper cones and began playing with them alongside other things I had in my studio.