Feel the fear and screen print anyway?

A day to yourself is a treat, isn't it? I'm not confessing to being some sort of misanthrope - lots of people are lots of different kinds of marvellous - but, just occasionally, it's perfect to have a day just for me and to do something only I want to do.


This Saturday was one of those. Nick was going to SW4 (a festival featuring music of the sort that makes my soul shrivel a little bit) so I decided, on something of a whim, to go and do a screen printing workshop at Print Club London.

(I like this squid)

I was a bit nervous. I'd seen them at a print event at Somerset House earlier in the year and it looked very exciting. But... it's in Proper East London where people are painfully trendy and would probably be full of Proper Artists. And I'd feel uncool (it's not even cool to say cool any more, but now I cannot think of any other words at all) and like a fraud and people might not talk to me.


But I did it anyway. And the people were indeed trendy and cool but also lovely and sweet and very welcoming. And I had a wonderful time. Some of them were Proper Artists, but lots weren't and it was a beginners workshop so no one really knew what they were doing.


We had to take an image that would work well as a black and white print, so I took the gallopers drawing I made for my grandad a while ago.

Printing!

All my horses, drying.

The different prints from our class.

Such a lovely feeling to do something new and learn a new skill, and I'm so pleased I ignored my nerves and went. I'm now working out how I can create a screen printing studio on my kitchen table... I think it'll be possible and don't mind if it doesn't result in perfect images; one of the things I realised I like about the process is that you end up with images that are not digitally flawless, that there's always a little bit of personality in each one.