Inspired by Pop Art prints of the Sixties with a contemporary colour palette, the designs started out as drawings in my sketchbook with my pencil and favourite Japanese graphic markers.
I loved silkscreen printing this new collection of Butterfly Prints!
After cutting out the first colour layer in Illustrator, I printed out all of the templates and laid out them for printing on the mesh screen.
The templates are coated in sunflower oil to make them transparent and needs to dry before use.
After coating my screen with emulsion, the templates are placed onto screen and exposed in the darkroom. The screen emulsion is then washed out and the designs will appear. I love this part!
Mixing the water based acrylic ink with Galleria screen printing medium. The medium prevents the ink from drying to quickly and blocking the screen. Getting the perfect colour palette can be tricky, as I mix the colours myself and test them on paper before pulling the ink through the screen.
Here goes the Saffron Yellow layer. The ink sometimes appear much brighter before it hits the paper. That's why I always test!
First layer drying on the rack. The colour looks great!
Printing the detailed butterfly design in black ink.
Checking that the paper with the first yellow layer is placed perfectly under the mylar sheet for the butterfly layer.
Freshly printed Butterfly in Saffron Yellow.
Butterflies all lined up.
Testing colour palettes with the Sage Green layer.
Getting the positioning of the screen just right.
Butterfly in Sage Green ready to go on the drying rack.
Love having them all lined up like this. The joys of printmaking!
The perfect shade of Powder Pink.
More colour testing. Happy with the results!
A perfectly sweet butterfly ready to be printed by hand.
Slate Teal layer done. Now to print the black butterfly.
I love the detail on this butterfly. They are all different from each other.
All done and ready to dry. Think this Slate Tealcolour might be my favourite.
Here is the completed collection. You can add a black or white frame (UK orders only) or buy them in a Print Bundle and get a FREE print. Hope you like it?
"Butterfly" in Saffron Yellow >>
"Butterfly" in Slate Teal >>
"Butterfly" in Powder Pink >>
"Butterfly" in Sage Green >>
