We were back in the workshop again printing a new design ‘C’est La Vie’ design from the distinctively quirky and surreal local artist, Tom J Newell. When we first saw the design idea Tom sent through to us we loved it, but I wasn’t sure about the message. ‘C’est La Vie’ after all means; ‘That’s Life’ - which on the face of it seems quite passive, quite negative. After discussing it with the team however, James had a counter point.
“For me, realising that “That’s life” was actually a big part of moving forward with my recovery. Before that point, I was blaming other people for the situation I was in, which meant that I wasn’t taking responsibility for what I could do”.After this profound statement from James, we knew we had to print this beauty.
After this profound statement from James, we knew we had to print this beauty.
One colour prints are usually fairly straight forward, but the additional challenging factor in this print was that we were using metallic silver ink which is more translucent than standard coloured ink, which means that Robbie needed to pull the ink through the screen three times or ‘triple pull’ as it’s known in the trade.
We caught up with Robbie, to hear what he thought about his first workshop...
“I found the printing really rewarding, I felt a real overwhelming sense of achievement. I really enjoyed working with Will (from the Sheffield Print Club) and overcoming the different challenges we had when printing, such as the screen drying up. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it and how quickly the time flew as we were printing. I was learning from scratch so to have gone into the room without a clue what to do and then learning a new skill and seeing the finished print looking so good was so rewarding.”
Freshly printed metallic silver ink on Black 300gsm G.F. Smith card.
