Spring Printmaking

Pelham Art Club has been printmaking.

Our spring theme was inspired by the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries from fifteenth century France, and the appearance of the first green shoots here in London.

We began by looking at some mille-fleurs (thousand flowers) designs on the ancient tapestries.

And we saw some examples of how these artworks inspire modern designers.

We then started our own mille-fleurs sketches, using close-up photos of plants as starting points.

We transferred our finished designs onto polystyrene print blocks, first drawing in pencil, and then scoring deeper lines with pens.

When we’d scored all our marks, Karen demonstrated the next step.

We then covered our blocks with paint to make test prints on white paper.

Paint was transferred from the surface of the block but stayed in the grooves to reveal the image.

We then chose coloured paper and printed again, using more or less paint, depending on the effect we wanted to create.

Somehow, the second prints often turned out better than the tests.

Some people went on to experiment with overlaying their prints with a second colour, to give a feeling of depth.