Today my group printed our repeat pattern. We set up the stoppers, t-bars and repeat distance which was faster and easier than I anticipated. I feel like I have learnt a lot about time management and working under pressure today as well as learning about the basics of repeat screen printing.

Working as a team was another skill that I felt that I built on. In our group there was 4 of us which worked well when holding the screen and moving the squeegee across the screen. We evolved a system which worked well; we all mixed up one dye colour (which we had learnt to do when testing our colours a couple of weeks ago), we would take it in turns to pour the dye on to the screen, hold the squeegee and turn the hair dryers on to dry the print whilst others washed the screens. I think this is how we managed to get our print done in such good time. We managed to finish it in 5 hours which meant we had enough time for our individual colour ways. I was unsure whether I would get this done in time today because our table was booked by third years from 5 o'clock onwards. This would have meant I would have had to get our screens re exposed at a later date, luckily this was not the case. Whilst our length was being steamed we worked on our individual colours.

Group 3 metre repeat print.

I was still unsure on my colours because I had tested them out last night and was unhappy with the way they over layed each other. I had an idea of changing the layers about, I started thinking about the colours too much and was adamant the bee on our design should be yellow. I decided to change around the colours of the layers and I found that it worked quite well. Instead of sticking to the same kind of colours (for example keeping a yellow tone on the original yellow screen with the bees and flowers) I completely changed my way of thinking to make a more investing abstract print. I really love the way this has turned out and I would love to experiment more. Unfortunately there was limited time and we could only have our large group screens for the one day but the kodatraces will be kept so I can use them to create another screen to try out and experiment with unique colour combinations. I recognised that the colours of mine and my peers prints really changed the way the print looked. Prints with bolder colours really stood out to me and were much more striking.
Whilst mixing up my dyes for my individual colour way our 3 metre group print came out of the steamer and was ready to wash. Unfortunately the yellow on our print had speckled because the dye had not dissolved properly, we did try to overcome this by blending up the dye to break down the particles, we tested the dye. unfortunately is was only when the fabric was steamed, the speckles formed. This is an issue that probably could have been resolved by boiling the dye up too. Luckily, I found this out just before i printed my own colour way (which was using a similar yellow) I boiled up the dye on the hop and then blitzed it up with he had blended just to make sure!

My own colour way

Trying to prevent speckling in the yellow dye by dissolving the powder up by boiling and blending.

If I could do this again I would have filled the print up more so there were less spaces, using block colours as backgrounds behind drawings and using more abstract mark making drawing. Being part of a group meant that everyone had to input their ideas which meant not everyone's ideas were listed to entirely. Group work has taught me many things and I feel more confident and happy to be part of a team again.