Tuesday 10 February 2009

I eat my words...

Silk screened

Stenciled

A run of tea towels I printed last week.

The silk screening thing snuck up on me, as my plan was to stencil everything. I think I saw stenciling as a sort of compromise between block printing and screen printing; I'd still be able to use individual units to compose the pattern while printing, but I'd be able to see where to place them very accurately, and be able to lay more ink down than I can with blocks. I struggled with stenciling both neatly and quickly, though. After spending more time printing than I'd meant to, something snapped - and I taped the stencil to a screen.

Most of these went to fill an order, but I'll try to get some in my shop soon. Photographing and listing on Etsy currently has to take a backseat to illustration; due to some rather bad planning I'm working on three different books this week.

I'll be cutting a big stencil for the star prints, to be able to print the whole towel in one swipe. But I'll still have to use individual stencils to do this:

19 comments:

Cristina Salgueiro said...

They are gorgeous. What a great work ;)

Susan Scott said...

those are beautiful jesse. I agree with the decision to silkscreen for the tea towels. I found tea towels to be very tricky and time consuming - mine were not completely square and none were the same size - making placement and straight looking borders very difficult. Also, on a two-sided item, you want to either have it only print on one side or show through equally on the other side - hard to control with hand-printing. Only one design ended up on my site and I took it off after awhile because I wanted to just forget the whole experience. :-))

Rina said...

Hi Jesse, I love your blog, everything is so beautiful!
This towels are realy great!

Carina said...

These are awesome, Jesse! Especially that red one at the top. A-WE-SOM-E!

Anairam said...

They are lovely! I especially like the black star one and the red atom-thingie one. I just won't be able to bear using them as tea towels! I currently have one of Heather Moore's tea towels draped over a cushion in the living room because I do not want it to be spoilt with tea stains and such ...

Inklore said...

these are really lovely; I think there's a place for all of these techniques, and have been playing with all of them myself. Your prints are really delicate; love that.

Michelle Engel Bencsko said...

They're all gorgeous, but i truly love the one in the first photo.

flowerpress said...

Gorgeous, I love the first one best too :-)

Heather Moore said...

so beautiful! I've been so excited to see these, and can't wait to see them in the flesh. Good luck with all the illustration work...

mizu designs said...

These are just gorgeous Jezze! Good on you!!!!

Denise Kiggan said...

What a beautiful way to eat your words!

Pea said...

wow.. these are so beautiful !

Anonymous said...

You've made the transition to the (screenprinting) dark-side beautifully. Your tea towels are fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Jesse, those are so cool. I have yet to make the leap to silk screening, mostly due to lack of time and materials, but it's on my list of things to try!

Anonymous said...

Love them! So delicate and feminine. I also love your leaves and proteas! Very inspiring! Thanks also for the tutorials, it's soooo nice when people share their knowledge and experience to benefit others!

Anonymous said...

Hi Jezze,
your towels are awesome! I just discovered your blog this year and I really like your designs a lot. And you are so generous in sharing your experience in your tutorials!!!
I am in Cape Town, too...but from Europe and having a hard time to find supplies here... Sooo easy overseas - everything you can order online. Guess I am spoiled... so far I do things just with fabric paint and stencils

HomeSweet Jenny said...

Oh, I like. The red and white is kind of antique-y, like redwork on a quilt.

painted fish studio said...

oooo... i love the results! and the evolution of your work is really fun to watch. you have so much more control over block printing. the towels are fabulous!

Anonymous said...

Love them all, especially the first one. Beautiful work Jesse!