Sunday 4 August 2013

Where, oh where, oh where...........................?

I hope that I may have tempted some of you to have a go at screen printing if you haven't already. Some of you may have screen printed in the past at school or college and may have not tried it for ages. Either way, it's amazing to see that there are lots of facilities across the country that allow you to 'have a go', whether that be with running workshops or providing open access studio space. This means that you pay a nominal charge, possibly annually or by the hour and you can use their facilities. This is great because some of the machinery needed is not only expensive but also very large and so prohibits most people from having a studio at home. I can but dream though.......

I know of three open access studios within the Yorkshire area. The one I use is called Inc. Workshop although it used to be called Factory 4. It seems to have undergone a rebranding and hence a new name. I started with attending a course there and then joined to be able to use the facilities to create my own cards and posters.



 http://www.leedscitycollege.ac.uk/index.php/services-projects/inc-workshop/

They are not only devoted to screen printing but also offer woodwork, jewellery making, picture framing and upholstery. It is a non threatening place to use top quality equipment but also you can be guided through the process by people like Phil and Gina so don't worry you don't need to be Andy Warhol to go down there!


  
 There are also two other studios which I know about but haven't used personally although I hear very good things about. There is the West Yorkshire Print Workshop in Mirfield which offers a tremendous amount of facilities and studio space.


and for those nearer to the capital of Yorkshire there is Bar Lane Studios in York
If you're a member there, I'd love to hear about what you do. 

I can't always get to the studio and sometimes I don't need to use the large exposure unit as pictured above. I wanted to find a solution so that I could print to a high enough standard at home without the need to load all of my stuff into the red box (Emily's affectionate name for our car) and go into the studio. There fore I purchased some screen printing clamps from eBay and a large piece of wood from B&Q and created my own printing bed. I use some acetate to help with the registration and some tape to mark out the positioning of my paper/card.





So above you can see the clamps and the squeegees. But a slight warning. It can become very addictive and you will become the trawler of eBay for cheap screens and even websites such as Wicked Printing Stuff who sell all sorts of goodies related to printing. Don't say you haven't been warned!




  
 If you've had a go at screen printing or are an accomplished printer then I'd love to see what you have created. If you have a studio at home I'd also like to see how you have this set up; you're so lucky if you do!!

 Here's my shop if you want to have a look at some of the things I've printed or sewn.
  
  
Have a good day; we've got a rabbit in our living room so I'm scared to go in there. Hence wating for good old Johnny H to come home "Jjjjjjjjjoooooooohhhhhhhnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

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