winter weeds and screen printing

I finally did it. I sat down over coffee with a couple of friends, took out my Winter Weed Finder by Dorcas S. Miller (illustrated by Ellen Amendolara, bless her) and drew several things, including a wild leek that I successfully made into a silk screen (only successful on the second attempt, but successful, just the same). I have been wanting to silk screen forever. I even bought all the supplies a couple months ago, but that first drawing felt so important to get right that I was immobilized for a good while. When I finally decided to not take myself so seriously, I drew the picture (so simple) and then proceeded to attempt using the photo emulsion method (which required going to the copy shop to make a transparency, allowing the photo emulsion to dry on the screen in the dark of my closet, away from the exposing effects of the big bad sun for so long it seemed like I'd never again be able to change my clothes without considering what to grab before opening and slamming the door shut again...phew...story not over. Then came the burning of the image under the brightest lights I could find in the basement, which apparently, were not bright enough). Basically, on that first pass of ink onto paper, came a solid swath of blackness. No image. Hmm. I decided to use the drawing fluid method and it worked great.

Silk screening is magical. The print looks so much cooler than the drawing and as long as you have things to print, you can keep going and going. Here are some things that I made after printing thrifted t-shirts. First is a skirt that was a 2xl super wide men's shirt. It was wide enought to make a lovely a-line. I printed the image several times along the bottom and used fold over elastic to make the waistband. Pretty. Comfy. Kinda my perfect everday skirt.

The next project was a large red thrifted t-shirt where I silk screened one image onto the chest. I turned this into a little swing dress/ tunic for Ava. She even modeled it for me in Cowboy boots! For those of you who know her, this may be a surprise. It is even more of a surprise that she asked to keep it instead of allowing me to put it in my ETSY shop. Sure!

Well!