All that glitters is not Gold

All that Glitters is not Gold,
Screen print and embroidery
2014

I have recently finished another magpie piece, this time using screen printing and hand embroidery. After I had made my last magpie embroidery (Hail to the Thief) I carried on drawing magpies and playing around with ideas connected to them and found that I had lots of other pieces of work I wanted to make and develop. I think that there may before too long be a whole series of magpie based art works! 

Magpie screen print on fabric

Magpie screen print on black paper

Screen print detail (fabric)

Usually when I work on a piece I begin with drawings and an idea which I then sketch and write about until I have a rough outline (at least in my head) of how I am going to make the piece. This piece was slightly different, although it did begin with drawings. I was doing some 1:1 work with an emerging artist and we were exploring screen printing; partly to demonstrate with and partly because I just really like screen printing I made a three layer stencil of a magpie. I wasn't originally going to add much stitch but once I started I felt that I really wanted to make a heavily embellished piece with lots of texture and colour. 

Getting started

Leg detail

Building up the colours

I choose the colours and stitches as I went along, referring to my drawings and photos for guidance and frequently unpicking areas if they were not as I wanted them. I wanted to use rich, precious threads for the magpie so a lot of the threads are silk and are hand dyed. 

Foot detail

Head detail

Wing detail

As the last magpie piece had come from the starting point of silver and my ideas have been revolving around the odd relationship we have with magpies (they are surrounded with superstitions and suspicions; we call them thieves yet we also salute them, berate their penchant for shiny trinkets but admire their glossy and iridescent plumage) I decided to perch the magpie upon a pile of pretty, but essentially worthless, pearls and crystals. None of the pearls or crystals are 'real' and most have been reclaimed from old necklaces. This use of 'fake' materials brings up questions of authenticity and how we place value on things. As I work in an often maligned medium these questions are central to my work. 

Spooky Screen Printing

Ghosties and Pumpkins

I work at The Heathlands Project, a social enterprise supporting adults with disabilities. Yesterday two very exciting things happened at work. Firstly, we were on T.V. (watch us here) and secondly (and in  my opinion even more excitingly) my Monday art gang and I did some screen printing. I love screen printing; it's such a simple way to get really professional looking results.

Stencils

Last week we made some stencils by doing simple Halloween themed drawings which we then cut out. Some of the guys needed a bit of support with this and some of them managed just fine without me! This week I got one of the guys with whom I've done quite a bit of screen printing to demonstrate to the rest of the group how it's done. He did a great job and was really good at supporting other group members throughout the process.

First time screen printing

Pro screen printer

My design

We were just using normal copier paper to make our stencils and we got 2-3 prints from each stencil before needing to wash out the screen so we ended up with a good selection of prints to make into bunting. The guys did so well I'm thinking of locking them in a room to produce beautiful screen prints for me! I'm really looking forward to decorating our cafe area with the bunting next week.

Cats and Pumpkins

Bats and Cats

Beautiful Bunting

Bunting