Bits and pieces.

I had a lot of fun during the Christmas break trying out different techniques of printing. You may have seen the Cat bag in my last post. This used some of the results of my printing experiments.

The first of these was lino printing. Can you see the daft mistake I made first? Yes, the resulting print will be back to front!



I tried again. This time getting the design right.



I tried printing these with fabric paints, but these were not thick enough. The lino print paint is fine, but since I really would like to print on fabric it really will not do. Back to the drawing board on this one. I shall find a thickener for my fabric paints, or a thicker type. I did not throw out the first lino board that I cut. I decided that, in a pale colour, it would actually be a good foil to the real design.



The other form of printing I played with was potato printing. Such a lot of fun this was. I printed cats paw prints, stars and just a flat potato edge using four colours.
I printed on the unprinted side of a fabric bag I have had for some time. It was one with an advertisement for some kind of alcohol on the other side. Now that the printing of this side is complete, I intend to add a false front to the other side. This will cover the original design and make the bag more useful to me.





Joy of joys, I now have a new tenor recorder! This is the bag it came in. It is a beauty and sounds wonderful. At present I am just playing this in. The recorder is wooden and needs to be played for just ten minutes a day for the first week. The next week it can be fifteen minutes, gradually lengthening playing duration each week until I can play it for forty minutes.



My gorgeous new friend. A Mollenhauer Denner.



This is Salts Mill, Saltaire. The Early Music Shop, where I bought my new recorder is to be found on the ground floor. Its a wonderful place to visit, if you ever have the chance. There is a gallery holding a marvellous David Hockney exhibition.