Monday 30 May 2011

Snowy Owl Print

I can't deny that this year has been hard work so far... but I am slowly getting used to not having a day job and starting to get some energy back. It's been a long time since I had the time or energy to pick up a pen and start drawing out new ideas and designs for Inkmeup or even to restock some of my old ones.It was really hard to get back into drawing... it's been 4 months which is the longest I have gone without drawing since I can't remember when. I was struggling last week but finding those beautiful bird books really helped to inspire me to get to work. I did have a little hissy fit when, after 2 hours of drawing, I decided I had lost the ability to draw and threw my pens up in the air and went out. When I came home I had a look at what I'd done and realised I had forgotten to step back and have a look at what I had done... and I decided it wasn't so bad and that I should finish it!I pulled out the gocco and some bulbs and got ready to fire a screen, prepared a load of different papers and inked the screen up... I made my first print and thought that something did not look quite right, his feet were a bit light... I tried again, maybe the ink was a bit gloopy and wasn't going thru properly, but no, something was definitely wrong. I check the bulbs in the machine and realised that one had failed to fire properly. Very calmly, instead of my usual hissy fit cos I'm only allowed one a day, I worked over a few of the fainter lines on the original drawing and got some more bulbs out and made a new screen... this one worked!

Print 2 with feet... print 1 with no feet from misfiring bulb!

I'm really happy with my new snowy owl... very happy indeed! I can't wait to get working on some more new designs, I am thinking of a whole series of different owls since I enjoy drawing them so much. I even got some more owlie moley notebooks printed!

2 comments:

  1. That lovely owl looks great!! So happy to hear you are getting the energy & inspiration back!!

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  2. Your owl is very cool, and I love to see process pictures, printing processes fascinate me!

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