Colour Overlap.

Two colour screen print: manhole covers.

A quiet but productive afternoon in Waun Wen community centre today, continuing with my screenprint series based on images of local manhole covers from original photographs by Melvyn Williams. I mixed Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint, Process Magenta, into screenprint medium and overprinted the Process Blue images I did a few days ago. Where the translucent colours overlap there are flashes of purple and lilac.

Screenprinting selfie

I was joined by our local councillor Hannah who is also an experienced screenprinter and she printed another set of manhole images in blue, on the floor behind us. I’m not used to taking selfies, this wasn’t my first attempt to get something half decent 😀

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Unboxing Excitement!

Gold / silver pinwheel pendant by Thomas Newton.

Sciency Stuff!

I’m so excited! I’ve just unboxed my new pendant from Swansea-based artist / designer / jeweller Thomas Newton. I love his work – it starts as this sort of computery concept and somehow he magics it into existence with sciency stuff. There, that explained it well. You can find his work on Facebook and Instagram, it’s worth checking out if only to go oooh and aaaah at the beauty of it.

Gasping!!

Here’s a film of me unboxing it – I’m gasping more than Jane Birkin on “Je T’aime”!

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

The First Print.

The very first silkscreen print of the Waun Wen manhole covers.

Manhole Covers In Blue

Here’s the very first screenprint of my series of manhole covers of Waun Wen. I started with an original photo by Melvyn Williams, digitally altered it in Adobe Photoshop, printed it onto a sheet of acetate with an inkjet printer, and used that as a negative to create a photoscreen. Then I printed it onto paper using Daler Rowney System 3 acrylic paint mixed with System 3 screenprinting medium.

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Screwing Down The Hinge Clamps.

Screwing the screen clamps to the screen bed.

Getting Prepared

I’m working on a community arts project in the Waun Wen area of the city for the next few weeks and I’m going to be doing some screenprinting demonstrations. I bought some new kits for the project with screens, squeegees and screen hinge clamps so they can be used on portable bases. I had some 18mm MDF cut to size and screwed the screen clamps to them. And here’s one below, ready to go!

Taped, clamped and ready for action.

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Manholes And Parcel Tape

Ready to tidy up the edges of exposed photoscreens screens

Sealing The Edges

I had a contented afternoon at Waun Wen Community Centre today, preparing my photoscreens by fixing parcel tape around the interior edges to seal the space between the edge of the photo-solution and the frame of the screen. This has to be done before printing otherwise the ink will seep though onto the paper.

The edges of the screen have been sealed with parcel tape.

The images are developed from digitally altered photos of manhole and stopcock covers on local pavements (taken by Melvyn Williams).

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Old Lace And Rice

Pressing rice into porcelain clay

Here’s another porcelain cup being made yesterday at Esther Ley’s pottery session in Waun Wen and Brynmelyn Community Centre. This participant has pressed antique lace into the top edge of the teacup and then pressed grains of rice into the rest. These will burn out in the kiln when the cup is fired and the little holes they leave behind will be filled with transparent glaze and fired again.

Still Time To Book A Place

If you fancy coming to one of the pottery sessions, there are a few places left on Friday 18th February, 13.00 – 15.00, for people who live in or near Waun Wen. Message me, but hurry up, they’re going fast ….

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Slip, Stamps And Lemon Drizzle

Today I was at the third of the six planned pottery sessions at Waun Wen Community Centre, run by Swansea ceramicist Esther Ley. We had tea and lemon drizzle cake and porcelain and moulds and stamps and slip and people made some quite spectacular teacups. This participant has decorated their cup with rice, liquid slip and a stamp. I can’t wait to see it fired and glazed!

Still Time To Book A Place

If you fancy coming to one of the pottery sessions, there are a few places left for people who live in or near Waun Wen. Message me, but hurry up, they’re going fast ….

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Chilling With Ceramics

Aaaah what a lovely evening yesterday, with a small group of people and local ceramicist Esther Ley at Waun Wen and Brynmelyn Community Centre. Esther and I are running arts sessions for the next few weeks for Swansea University (see below). Esther has devised this cracking one-off session for people to make their own porcelain cup and spoon. The pictures show, from the left, smoothing the interior with a weird spongy thing; trimming the edge of the cup with an old store loyalty card; and decorating the inside with tiny, tiny alphabet pasta. This participant spelled out Waun Wen. Fair do’s, it wasn’t easy using those teeny, fiddly letters.

The First Stages

The first four stages of making a cup

From the left, rolling a ball of porcelain clay; squidging it up the plaster mould; squidging it up some more; smoothing it to get it as thin as possible.

Still Time To Book A Place

If you fancy coming to one of the pottery sessions, there are a few places left for people who live in or near Waun Wen. Message me, but hurry up, they’re going fast ….

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Teacups And Spoons

Four stages in making a moulded porcelain teacup. Photos by Esther Ley.

Busy Busy Busy

February is going to be a busy month for the final few weeks of my arts residency in the Waun Wen area of the city. One of the things that’s happening is a series of free ceramics sessions by the talented Swansea potter Esther Ley to make a porcelain teacup and spoon with local residents at the Waun Wen and Brynmelyn Community Centre.

Four stages in making a moulded porcelain cup handle. Photos by Esther Ley.

The History Of Tea in Britain

It started out as a very posh drink, tea caddies were locked to stop servants from nicking it. But the price fell because of smuggling and slavery and it became cheap enough for working class people to afford it. One of the advantages is that it’s made with boiled water, which made it a very safe drink throughout the 18th and 19th centuries when water was filthy and full of germs. You can read more about it if you click on the images below.

Posh Or Common?

Do you put your milk in first or are you a milk in last person? One of these is supposed to be posh and one is common. Click on the images above to find out why. If you fancy coming to one of the pottery sessions, there are a few places left for people who live in or near Waun Wen. Message me, but hurry up, they’re going fast ….

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Coating And Exposing

Geeking Out

I spent a happy morning geeking out at at Swansea Print Workshop, coating my new silkscreens with photosensitive solution and exposing and developing images from the acetates I prepared recently.

It’s Complicated!

As they’re new screens, I started by de-greasing and drying them. Then I coated the surfaces with Azocol photoscreen fluid and dried them in the darkroom. Then I put the acetates onto the glass surface of our UV Unit and placed a screen face down onto each acetate and went through the process of exposing them for 2 minutes. Then quickly into the spray booth to wash them, which is how they’re developed.

It sounds complicated. It is!

Part of the Home and Hinterland community arts project in partnership with Swansea University’s Taliesin Arts Centre.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the antique taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these vintage artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.