Description
Five colour hand screen print limited edition print of 5.
The original photograph was pretty cool. Producing a piece that kept the mood of the photograph, looked like an uchi print, whilst pleasing someone other than ourselves was harder than expected.
Deciding on a limit of six colours was the first step. After starting over a few times, the original photograph was simplified in Photoshop in order to separate the colours. After the crude separations in Photoshop it was time for the laborious exercise of cleaning up and repainting areas on each separation pixel by pixel. The bridge was redrawn and it’s reflection added.
Finally, when the artwork was complete and the six positives were created, it was time to make the silk screens for printing.
I wanted a very subtle “pearlesque” effect, so I used semi transparent pastel colours and mixed some of the inks with an iridescent ink. The images don’t show this effect clearly enough and is only noticeable when the print is seen at a certain angle or in certain light.
It was a challenge creating a piece of art based on someone else’s image. I’m grateful that I was asked and glad I accepted the commission, as it was a lot of fun and made me want to print more diverse work. It could have been done in a fraction of the time and effort. However, if it didn’t get the “this is an uchi print?!” response, it would certainly not have satisfied me, and most importantly, the happy recipient.
