This week I have been continuing to prepare my canvas boards for screen printing onto next week. I have painted them “light portrait rose” which I would describe as baby pink. One comment I had today is that they were “fleshy pink” which I think is very relevant considering what will be printed onto them. I hadn’t really considered the fact that I was using a paint designed for portraits and painting skin tones to create a base for my outline drawings of girls who are naked or in just underwear. This added an element to the work that I hadn’t been able to see for myself and had originally chosen on the fact that it was that cliche pastel pink that every girl is categorised with when they are first born (and forever more if you ask people off the top of their head what colour do they associate with females).
The boards are having their final coat of primer painted onto them this week and I am trying to figure out how to cut my lace to print the net curtain. I have a few initial drawings done for the girls that will be printed behind but cutting the stencils up for that will be even harder as the picture will be split between boards – bringing up the problem of whether I keep the drawing whole and simply cut it into the 60×60 squares or whether I take the window frame idea into this and say well the gaps between the boards represent a window frame so you can’t see through it, meaning that there would be pieces of the drawing lost behind the “frame” which is the gaps between the boards. It is something that needs a lot of thought before I am able to start printing.
I still have to create a pallete of colours that I want to use, getting the perfect tones so that every detail is visible yet still subtle will be challenging. Then starting to test print on Monday. I can’t wait to get into the screen print workshop again and get some pattern down on these plain pieces of canvas!
