PRESS RELEASE - Masterclass Workshops in Screen-Printing and Photoshop®

This Autumn, I'm very happy to be starting Screen Printing and Photoshop® Masterclass Workshops in my studio. Just over two years ago I was about to set these up when my dad died and I put the whole plan on the back burner. 

Below is the press release that came out today! For more info and booking please visit https://sampickard.bigcartel.com (or via the link image on the side of my blog). 

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release 21.8.14

Sam Pickard Masterclass Workshops in Screen Printing for Textiles

An internationally acclaimed textile designer is to hold Masterclass workshops for the first time at her Devon studio. Multi-award winner Sam Pickard, whose stunning floral and moorland wildlife designs have sold worldwide, will be holding two day introductory classes in textile screen printing in October and November, in South Molton.

   

“I am very excited about these classes, and I am looking forward to sharing my skills with people who are serious about learning how to screen print onto fabric, who are enthusiastic and creative, and perhaps want to work towards setting up on their own. I have experience working as a university lecturer with large classes of students, but this is the first time I will be teaching very small groups. I am looking at a maximum of 5 people in each workshop, so that I can offer everyone plenty of individual attention.”

The Introduction to Textile Screen Printing courses will run on 16th and 17th October, and 20th and 21st November 2014. Each workshop costs £250, and will be held in Sam’s spacious premises in South Molton. Beginners are welcome. Some drawing or design ability would be useful, but is not essential.

Participants on the course will learn how drawings can be translated onto acetate, how colour separations take place and how to work with a silk screen. They will also be introduced to different dyes and finishes. “There is something so exciting about screen printing,” says Sam. “It is a fantastic moment when you lift the screen to see the print. I am hoping to convey some of this excitement to the people on my courses. Everyone will have the chance to create their own individual design, printed onto linen. So they will come away with a textile print they can use perhaps to make a cushion or something for their home. It will be a unique and original piece of work, which they have put emotional and creative energy into, and hopefully enjoyed making.” 

Sam’s exquisite floral designs have won acclaim all over the world. Sam has exhibited at top shows including 100% Design, the Chelsea Crafts Fair and New York and San Francisco Trade Fairs.  She is the winner of the prestigious RSA Design in Industry Award, and the RSA Travel Award. Two of her designs were also short listed for the British Design Awards. Closer to home, she is winner of the Devon Guild’s Summer Exhibition President Award.

Her distinctive drawing style combines a bold, modern freshness with the delicate detail and precision of traditional botanical artists. She gains inspiration from her love of the outdoors, and her designs capture the individuality and personality of particular plants with a sense of tenderness and intimacy. Increasingly she is using the exact colours found in nature. Since 2010 she has kept a blog, drawing plants from the North Devon coast and Exmoor, documenting their colours and matching them to CMYK.  “I have a deep love of nature and am fascinated by the variety of colours found in plants. Each time I look closely at a plant I am drawing, I am impressed by the incredible intricacy of the structure, and the range of colours. My blog is now influencing the choice of colours in my screen printing.”

For more information about Sam’s textile screen printing workshops, and to book a place on the courses, visit www.sampickard.bigcartel.com

Sam is also holding two day workshops on Photoshop® for Textile Design, run jointly with her husband Peter Bishop, a graphic designer and an Adobe Certified Instructor in Photoshop®. These are aimed at professionals who want to learn about digital techniques used in textile printing. The Photoshop® courses will be held in South Molton in January/February 2015. For more details visit www.sampickard.bigcartel.com

I'm very grateful to Jan Spencer of http://womensdevelopmentunlimited.org.uk/ and the women in the Business Action Group for their invaluable support and encouragement, to James Lochhead for his literary input, and finally to Debbie Manners at http://www.ndmedia.co.uk/ for this press release! Thank you.

Cornwall Design Fair 2014

Last minute printing for Cornwall Design Fair, breathed a huge sigh of relief about an hour ago when this Ivy block repeat I'd screen-printed today with a copper finish came off my heat press successfully. So many things could go wrong with this print - but thankfully they didn't, it was one of those spectacular moments!!

Trereife House near Penzance is the wonderful setting for Cornwall Design Fair. This will be the third year I've exhibited and I love the relaxed atmosphere of this fair. There's live music playing in the entrance of the exhibitors marquee, it isn't too big or overwhelming, exhibitors and visitors have a great time rain or shine and the Le Grice family generously open Trereife House to the public and allow work to be exhibited inside. I'm delighted to be showing my work again in their Queen Anne style drawing room, definitely worth a visit if you can make it!

Heart Napkins for William Morris Gallery...

William Morris Gallery in London have just ordered my 'Heart' napkins !!

For the last two days in the midst of fairly hectic preparations for Cornwall Design Fair next weekend, I've screen-printed, steamed, washed, pressed and packed my Heart Fawn and Heart Rabbit napkins in deep blue, turquoise and red colourways - phew!

silk screened Fawn...

Racking up Rabbits...

The napkins are (exceptionally well!) printed onto 100% natural linen, are fully machine washable and cost £26.50 for a pack of two. They are now available not only from me directly but as of next week I'm really delighted to say, will be in the shop at William Morris Gallery!!!

  

It's my birthday and I'll print if I want to!

First (paper) test printing of the Bamboo, lunch with a lovely friend, special scarf - perfect day!!!

must be time for a glass of Prosecco - Cheers! x

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Colour sampling - Chrysanthemum print

From experience I know the only way to develop new work is to make a start, get the ideas out of my head and onto paper, fabric, or wherever, accept that much of this early work may not be be brilliant and keep going.

At last, after colour sampling trials this week (huge sigh of relief!), I'm finally getting somewhere.

First samples: I printed the colours I'd sampled from the real Chrysanthemum flower back into the printed flower - as in my original notebook page, with interesting results...

Then I printed colour squares behind the flower as on my notebook pages. The white seriously mis-printed but you get the idea. To give an idea of scale the squares are 25cms...

Now a change of line colour. Here the flower outline is leaf green, the infill is dusky petal orange. Subtle, and reminiscent of Art Nouveau?

I decided to simplify. Do I have to fit every colour in just because nature manages to!
Here I've printed only one colour in the petals and the leaf green. I also introduced a shadow. Inspired (as I often am) by the work of Patrick Caulfield, I thought a hard edge shadow would be achievable and dramatic.

I nearly always use unbleached linen (partly as a positive environmental choice and partly because I really love it) therefore in all the above samples I'd adjusted the colours to take into account this underlying base colour and keep as near as possible to the colours in the plant. However I did (lastly) trial print this sample onto bleached linen in Chrysanthemum bud dusky pink.

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Screen Printing in the studio - Chrysanthemum flower

After a difficult start to the year, I've come out the other side feeling pretty positive again! This has been helped along no end by putting new work onto screen and sample printing in the studio this week. Also driven by the forthcoming exhibitions and applications this year which won't hang around and wait for me.

Here's what I've been doing. It's just the start!

I'd already (digitally) printed out a giant Spider Chrysanthemum onto drafting paper to get an idea of how it might look scaled up. I had to scale it down a little from that to fit on my screens but as you can see here (I'm 5' 7") it's still quite big.

I decided to do a test print onto fabric in black and white. Just lifting the screen on and off the print table can be challenging.

Printing white. Lucky that I remembered to check the size of my biggest squeegee when I scaled the flower. Only just fits!

Lifting the screen is always a wow moment!

Now printing the second screen - the black...

and finally - well - just a peek!

...and to think that I grew this Chrysanthemum from a little plug planted in my greenhouse!

Next week I'm print sampling in colour - more to come on this...

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

'The Accomplisht Cook'...

...'or the Art and Mystery of Cookery' by ROBERT MAY published in London in 1685

contains...

"Bills of FARE for every Season in the Year; also how to set forth MEAT in order for that Service, as it was used before Hospitality left this Nation".

Designed last year for an exhibition at Dartington Food fair, this runner sets out extracts from... "The most Exact, or A-la-mode Ways of Carving and Serving"..."A Bill of Fare for Christmas Day, and how to set the Meat in order" (not for the faint hearted it has to be said!).

The Preserve recipes screen-printed on the linen napkins are for Gooseberries Green, Damsins, Cherries and Apricocks, (all of which I intend to attempt making one fine day).

Owing to popular demand - I've just put the design back onto screen and have been re-printing it this week onto fine natural hemstitch edged linen. Durable and fully wash-board and mangle friendly, I think even Robert May himself might have approved!

Favourite things: Accomplisht Cook table runner and napkins; Vintage 6 Pt Casserole by Pearson's of Chesterfield; Antiquated Sharpening Steel by Taylors of Sheffield; Rosehips; Sweet Chestnut and Sparrow feathers.

Accomplisht Cook table runner and napkins now for sale in my shop (here :)
'tis the season to be jolly and all that!

Pattern Repeat and Heart Fawn napkins

Batten down the hatches - stormy weather here!

The clocks went back last night and gaining an hour today, I went for an early morning walk at Simonsbath on Exmoor (pronounced Simmonsbath). Got totally drenched through, but exhilarating nonetheless as Exmoor is incredibly beautiful at this time of year. Then to the studio for a spot of screen-printing. It never feels like work whether it's Monday or Sunday and anyway I was dying to sample print my new napkins.

I had designed a simple repeat background using some of my notebook drawings selecting those that would balance well together as silhouettes, as for this design I wanted to create a single colour print - this was how I started...

(in case you didn't recognise them here they are in their full colour glory all from my notebook..!)

I then developed the design by mirroring and balancing the elements until I felt it worked well as a repeat pattern - now in perfect digital repeat...

I scaled down the design and placed it in a heart shape, carefully cutting around the pattern to keep an uneven edge. I then added the Fawn because it's Christmas!

They come in packs of two - screen printed on 100% natural linen. I love the fact that you don't see the heart shape until you open them fully...

'Heart Fawn' - designed with some of my best friends in mind...

A postcard from Simonsbath today, in the foreground Moorland Bracken and Chip dressed appropriately for the weather ...

'Heart Fawn' linen napkins are £26.50 for a pack of two. Screen-printed with love (!) the price includes UK postage (Please email me further details and for shipping costs for the rest of the world).
(Heart Rabbit and Pheasant coming soon!)

...from my seasonal colour sample notebook.

Screen Printing - Studio sampling

A few photos in the studio showing some of the sampling stages of the new geometric design I've been printing.

The dye bench in my studio – 4.2 metres long (including sinks). The dyes piled up on the top of the cupboard are natural dyes, Lichen, Cochineal, Madder, Brazilwood, Walnut and many more. The oversize wooden spoons, turned blue from past Indigo vats, are great for dyeing. The old plough came with the building and the rabbit, a first test paper print, keeps a wary eye on everything.

My invaluable dye notebooks and scales.  Industrial Marigold gloves!

I'm printing onto natural (ie unbleached) linen. Here are some of the colours and first sample prints.

Two Belfast Sinks, one clean(ish), one dirty for washing dye-pots etc. Dyes/chemicals etc are stored underneath.

printed sample detail of indigo/brown colourway...after printing the fabrics are steamed to fix the dye, then washed thoroughly to remove excess dye, thickeners etc.

First full screen print.  I designed this geometric stripe originally to be laser etched into cork (as a very fine lined stripe) and I've always thought it would make a great design for fabric. A different variation of it is being (digitally) manufactured in the U.K. currently onto fabric lengths, based upon these samples I've printed in the studio. The design is startlingly modern and yet quite ethnic, even rustic in feel, and I think really successful. My design inspirations originally were influenced by the textiles of the Weiner Werkstätte and also Josef Albers, Formulation: Articulation. (links are to books I have).

These cushions are filled with 100% wool filled pads (http://www.woolsoft.co.uk), which importantly supports the UK wool industry, as well as being far more cosy than feathers. At 30"x 24", they will make a pretty impressive design statement to a room. Designed to be bed-cushions, they are I think, exactly perfect for lazy Sunday mornings!

Table runners - Rosetta table runner

Thrilled to bits with the first prints of my china tea rose table runner - here's one of the first - hot of the print bed !

First screen - looks black but in fact is a deep smokey blue/grey...

Pure natural Irish linen - sustainable as well as beautiful...

That's real sunshine !!!! (I think I've been sad without the sun)...

Detail showing 2nd colour paler china grey/blue...

"Rosetta Glory"

Back to work!

Screen Printing - Twine table runners

I've been screen printing in the studio the last few days as I've needed to re-print my Twine table runners, so thought I'd share the print process.
I love screen printing, as soon as I'd learnt to print at Camberwell Art college I was hooked. More recently I've used digital print production as well as laser etching in my work, but for the past year I've been screen printing almost everything I produce again and yes it is labour intensive, but I'm not planning on mass production!

Twine table runner in green colourway... (one at a time)...


Printing the green dye first - the runners are 180cms long so I have to print them lengthways down my print table.

Successful first colour printed.

Lining up the second screen to overprint a black outline.

Printing the black.

Lifting the screen is always a great moment!

detail of a perfect print !

Natural Dyes

Visiting Scotland a few weeks ago, the rocks were covered in lichen, the hills in heather and bracken and the woods in blaeberries (bilberries). It was spectacular to see this abundance of vegetable dyestuffs used traditionally in the dyeing of tartans and tweeds.

Crotal is the common name for the several species of lichen that grow on the rocks and which give the famous chestnut and reddy brown colours (and woody smell) used originally to make Harris Tweed. Ragweed was used to give orange hues...

...heather and bracken gave a green and yellow dyes, black dyes were produced from alder bark and dock roots, birch leaves and bog myrtle produced a dull yellow and peat soot produced yellowy browns. Alongside the indigenous dyes, Indigo and madder were imported for shades of blue and red.

The scoured yarn was usually mordanted before dyeing and in the past mordants would have come from natural sources; rock alum, iron rich mud and other mineral deposits such as iron and copper sulphides.  An alkali or acid would also be added to the dye vat to help absorption of the dye to the fibre and in the past stale urine, tannins, wood ash, citric and oxalic acids (such as crab apple and rhubarb) were used for this.

                                                                                                 Lichen, heather, birch leaves and oak galls

Two of the best recipe books I have found for dyeing with natural dyes are 'Natural Dyes - Fast or Fugitive and Natural Dyes for Vegetable Fibres, both by Gill Dalby and available along with a vast range of natural dyes from P and M Woolcraft .

For block printing recipes, indigo vats and interesting (and archaic!) dye recipes - Susan Boscence's book 'Hand block printing and Resist dyeing' is very informative. Some of the ingredients are difficult or impossible to source nowadays or are simply too poisonous to consider using. I found that dyeing fabrics in iron rust and printing with print pastes made up with solutions of oak galls and other plants high in natural tannins effective and interesting (although limiting in colour).  Here's an interesting indigo recipe from her book...

RECIPE

"a very old Shetland recipe used for fisher folks' jerseys which was guaranteed absolutely fast:

Preserve a gallon of urine for over a fortnight (male urine is best) preferably in a warm place, stir occasionally, and in this soak one and a half ounces powdered indigo tied in a muslin cloth. Soak wool in warm urine for ten minutes before putting in the tub - which should be kept warm and stirred occasionally, it takes two weeks to get a good blue" 

Below some of my dye notes recording natural dye and print recipes and colours on Hemp, Cotton and Silk...

... even the limpets in Scotland reminded me of pleated tartan?