Story of Finding My Vase Stencil Prints Idea
Whilst on my travels in China, I have visited many different shops around old towns and modern cities which are so fascinating to see because I find it always interesting to see many different things that I have not seen before. In Shanghai and Huang Zhou I walked around many different shops which were very inspiring and I saw Things like old looking wooden furnishings such as chairs and tables that were quite interesting to see and the way they were carved and the nice dark stained finishes on them.
I also had plenty of opportunity to seeing some solid gold jewellery that were made up into dragons, plates, statues of people and these solid gold ornaments were all nicely carved from gold which were quite expensive to buy looking at the price of them.
How did I get my Inspiration?
What’s more, I was really interested in the quaint and intricate looking vases that they had on show next to the jade carvings. I really thought these were the most interesting because every Vase was like a unique one off manufacture in its own right.
In fact I liked them so much I actually bought one vase that interested me the most that had original white and blue Chinese colours and had cut out patterns and lettering so you could see through the Vase. The top funnel part of the vase lifts up so you could place a candle light inside or something and was really worth buying for my father as he likes vases very much.
In the same shop they also sell the quality ink brushes that you write with but for some reason I just could not take my eye from these nice Vases, they were just so nicely hand painted bits of pottery. So my idea really comes from looking around shops and seeing the intricate works done on some ornaments especially the very fine detailed vases.
Although I could not afford all of them, I had to think of some way of making prints of them so I looked at the Chinese method of cutting out paper stencils. I want to be able to print vases that would be more affordable and can hang up in people’s living rooms or anywhere in their home that would go nicely with their colours.
Paper mayhem….
I began copying some paper stencils shown on the Chinese websites and bought my own proper blue and red colour stencil papers to use to cut out the vases. The only and biggest problem I faced when doing this was that the paper was in fact too thin for the likes of the ink I want to use for printing with and would never work. In the end I waited until I came back home from China last summer and decided to photocopy all the vases that I ever cut out, I think about 8 or 9 of them and I just sent all the copies from the photocopier to my email address.
Once that was done I went back from the library to the printmaking room, opened up my email and simply sent the images to Photoshop, making sure the sizes and quality of DPI are correct then just sent them to the main printer and managed to print them out nicely in Matte finish.
Plan of action!
After that well… the fun begins of cutting them all out again only this time on thicker paper and I just knew that there would be no way that the ink would get through as it’s not too watery anyway just thick water based ink. So once the fun and games were over I just look forward to the printing to be honest and the only method I could think of the most that would work out really well would be my own best printing method called the Screen Press Printing. Yeah silk screen would be too much ink for the stencil to even bare and will just break after a few prints, also using the stamp press would not be an accurate and clear enough print.
How did I make it?
I just basically use the roller press, my plastic screen and my different sized rollers to roll the different colour inks on acting as the quickest and best solution to the problem. I then place the inked plastic screen on top of my vase stencil and then let the magic happen… I do not even wet the paper or even use the blotting or watercolour paper, I use mount card and normal card papers to print all my vase stencils on and the ink just comes out better than I could ever expected. It even came out quite embossed making it almost come to life and this is exactly the effect I wanted.
A memory trace coming to life?
The whole idea of this exercise was to try producing Vases that look almost real but is not, just fading traces of what people would desire and using Chinese style stencils with English style printing methods and worked out the way I wanted. There you have the two cultural influences bound together as a whole creating the new art themes that I always been trying to produce and I could say that these prints are only the beginnings of my Vase series.
The stencil cut-outs are in fact a big thing in China because it has been a big hobby for hundreds of years and they even use their stencil cut-outs to stick inside their homes or even restaurants as they looked nicely decorative. I want to carry on using these Chinese methods into my own interpretation of printing to create good stencil printing work.
