Preparing the stencils ready for producing a screen print is a relatively new experience for me, though under Daniel Bugg’s guidance I find myself greatly enjoying the the learning curve. It was odd, to begin with, creating an image only to deconstruct it in order to build again, this time in layers.
Now I find those layers to be fascinating. Neither the original preparatory image, nor the print that will come later, they have their own transient, translucent allure.
There’s paint, both opaque and transparent, drawings made in lithography crayon and in ink and collaged elements, where films marked with ‘frottage’ – rubbings made over rough surfaces such as the floorboards of my studio – are cut and taped into place to add diversity and density of mark-making.
Occasionally there are errors, excised with a scalpel and repaired with transparent tape elastoplasted over the wounds.
Of course, the only people who usually see the stencils are artist and printer. But today, for visitors here, I’ve made an album of images of the stencils for my current print-in-the-making.
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Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
A rather late comment from me, sorry, but I agree with Shellie, they are beautifully ethereal. I also love her description, she is spot on there. A similar technique can be achieved with photoshop by fading layers to transparency, which I’ve used occasionally as a basis for painting, but it’s not the same looking at a computer screen; your real layers have much more artistry where, in effect, each one is a work of art.xL
I find these layers very lovely….rather dreamlike…that sensation when you wake up from a particularly intense dream and bits of it still resound for a while, but in disparate slices. The blue image with the face is especially ethereal. I love seeing work during its development – its the thing we usually only see in our own work (especially if photographed along the way) and never in other people’s. It’s like looking in your sock draw, Clive! :-0 xx
er….sock drawer, that is……
Ha ha! Well I hope there’s nothing too scary in my sock drawer. One never knows!
As you know, Shellie, screen-printing is new to me. One of the things I’ve discovered, is that the layers of translucent stencils have their own beauty. They photograph wonderfully, too, and in different ways, according to the amount of light passing through the layers. So I have a sadness that they’ll never be seen because they’re just the ‘process’ part, and too big and unwieldy in their many layers to be viewed in a gallery context. So I snap and post here. It’s better than nothing.
Fascinating watching these forward excavations and watching you learn these new techniques.
It’s a journey, Jeffery, and an endlessly fascinating one.