I have had a few more attempts at printing now, and its proving very fun. A full image set of the results can be seen on flickr here.
I used a few techniques to experiment how you can make an image, my favourite is very quick and fun to do which is basically trial and error. It was inspired partly from a recent BBC program on Matisse which talked about his cutout paintings which involved making large sheets of painted colour which were then torn or cut with scissors to make a collage image on a canvas.
This was all the result of his declining health and being confined to his bed or wheelchair, but the technique is a joy to pursue as it requires instant compositional decisions and is a great chance to explore hands on craft rather than computer based designing. It is also very well suited to the stencil based designs required for screenprinting, so i made a series of prints with a ‘set of shapes’ which were cut out from an A3 sheet of card. The first composition became a face, initially because of the balance between the linear pieces and the circular piece which created a partner hole in its parent.
After placing the image once on the page, i began the next stage of composition which was to re colour and change the meaning of the image by rotating and superimposing it on the page.
The second composition that i made from the shapes became a rocket, which i added detail to with a handrawn circular element. These were fairly abstract at first…
but a slight incline in the orientation and it instantly became some kind or spaceshuttle!
Pete McMahon 