This week I have been mostly making...printing screens

In an attempt to keep track of my progress in the studio I am starting a regular (hopefully!) weekly blog on what I have been making.
I hope it will be an interesting look at how some of my work is made, the development which goes into new pieces and a place to see new work fresh from my bench!

So this week I have been working on my new collection of screen printed glass.

I took delivery last week of an exciting order of a new glass enamel paste!  It looks just like traditional printing ink but is infact a very finely ground glass. When it is printed on glass and heated in the kiln to over 750c the enamel melts and becomes a permanent shiney surface.

Lovely new enamel

The great thing about these enamels is that they are inter-mixable. I love colour so spent quite some time coming up with recipes and writing them all down. From six base colours I now have over 40 different shades to choose from, the difficulty is deciding which ones to offer apart from my favourite blues! As there are unlimited variations It does mean I can colour match and produce bespoke colours for commissioned pieces.

Fav blues

Before I could print anything though.... much of the week was spent designing and exposing the printing screens. For someone who would much rather be in the workshop than on the computer it took longer than expected...as always I thought it would take a couple of hours! Not a few days!

Exposed screen ready for printing coasters

Once designing was done I could get messy again! I use photo sensitive emulsion to coat the fabric on the screen, this produces really crisp designs. The emulsion is sensitive to light so I design my prints in black and white, the black areas being those I want to print. The black ink blocks the light to the coated fabric when exposed on a light box, when washed out with water the pattern is revealed on the screen. Its quite satisfying when it works and the design appears!

Colour chart screen

So this week I finished a screen design for my colour samples (think dulux in glass form!) a set of coaster designs and some individual strips for a lighting project which has been on my 'to do' list for quite a few years!

Colour Chart no.1

Printed glass strips for lighting..one day!

Once I have produced printed glass samples of each of the 40(or more!) colours, and have a kiln full of coasters I will get them out on display in the studio....I hope people will like the new designs!

Printed coasters ready for the kiln