Yesterday I made a couple of sheets of little circular designs, 24 in all, trying out some ideas for some Adult Education sessions I’ll be running soon. Today I chose 10 of them to make up into badges and mount onto a small canvas that I painted black.

I’ve had the badge machine for a while, it was an impulse buy during the Covid19 lockdown, but I haven’t done much with it. I really like the work of contemporary printmaker and artist Ryan McGinnis and I remembered seeing some of his canvasses mounted with screenprinted badges at an exhibition way back, 2007 I think, and that’s inspired me.

I tried them out in different combinations. I like them all, the way they’re laid out onto the background gives a different meaning to each image. I think I like the one at the top the most, I’ve called it “Outsider”.