What’s your newest resolution?
Accident or purpose that I ask this question on the second day of a new year?
Something in between, maybe.
Even if New Year resolutions can be just another fabulous way to make you spend more money on things you will only use for a few weeks, there is something about a year finishing and another one beginning.
You look back, you realize what you have done, thought and made during 365days. What will the next ones look like? What choices will I make?
Even though the past choices have been made once more you feel the infinity of possibilities you still have in front of you. And if you are crazy enough to pick the edgy ones by the end of another year you could be on the other side of this planet doing the thing, that seems impossible to you in this moment, right now.
Maybe I will write my Hive article on this Monday in a year next to a mountain river in Kazakhstan, who knows.
What all of that has to do with printing my fabric with oranges and hands, you wonder?
It is one little step, bringing me a few meters closer to this very mountain river.
Printing this fabric with a design I made, is a project I started a few months ago, that I am still working on.
It is still evolving.
Even though I wanted to wrap myself in a massive scarf printed with the lines, the moment I finished drawing them, I didn’t let this urge take over.
I didn’t run and print and sew, trying to make it all in one night, to execute my idea for the next day.
Sometimes I learn fast and in other moments I learn a few times.
I still put myself in situations of fast working, overwhelmed without breaks. But not in this one.
For that reason, I am printing my fabric now, not just with lines of oranges and hands, but also with my newest resolutions.
Working on the project, on a bigger one, that I might not even know yet when I draw the first lines of it.
There are a few previous attempts coming together in this serigraphy session.
There is the silkscreen and the printed fabric of another trial as a base.
And the pattern I made, which still was on paper and in a file until that moment.
Part I Preparing the silk screen
To start I had to wash off the old paint from the silkscreen...
…a few chemicals and splashing water later
…I apply new chemicals
…wreck my head about the size and form of the pattern I want to apply to the screen
…decide to go for the pattern repeat
…uv-light to imprint the design on the screen
…first magic when I wash it off
…slowly the lines appear
...a lot of water
…patience between each step of waiting and drying
…and finally, the last preparations
...taping the edges
Part II Printing
Choosing a fabric…
…and I wanted to overprint this one I had made recently
…wondering what effect I would get by it
…intuitively choosing a colour, turned out to be blue
…a bit of tape
…placing the fabric
…already cut from another attempt to make a top or sweater, why not reuse it
…paint
…reveal
…and I can’t get enough of the sharp lines and bright clear paint.
I am in love with another beautiful process.
How will this project evolve next time I come back to work on it?
I don’t know. Even though I am still tempted to keep on printing and sew a sweater with this design the very day, I don’t. I walk away, take a break. And leave a few marks behind.
Until next time…
All photos are mine taken by me, so are the designs.
Thank you all once more to stop by and wish you all the best inspirations for another year!
