Pink Tree aka Dead Bonsai
November 2nd, 2009
After a bit of a blog hiatus, I’m trying to catch up on projects I did over the last year or so. First up, a screenprint I created for an art exhibition in September 2008.
I had a bonsai for about 6 months, but after a very warm weekend, it promptly died (who’d thought those things needed water). So I kept the dead tree, as I had an idea for a print, and this was going to be the source.
To start with, I decided to print on stretched canvas. In hindsight, I should’ve printed on flat canvas and stretched it over a frame afterwards. I laid down a layer of light pink using a small squeegee and left it to dry.
I laid out some registration crosshairs in each corner, to correspond with the different screens (I used different sized screens).
First layer of pink leaves ready to be screened.
After another layer of darker pink, the tree was starting to take shape.
The stretched canvas was giving me an ulcer- the pressure from the squeegee was pushing the canvas down, hitting a cross brace on the stretcher frame. As I said, next time it’ll be flat canvas, then stretching it.
The third layer wasn’t as opaque as I hoped. Ideally the contrast between layer 2 and layer 3 would’ve shown the root system in the artwork.
I liked the final print, so I put it into the exhibition, and it sold on the opening night.
More photos on Flickr.
Post by John Rainsford
