It was a fascinating process for me as it was the first time I had a design produced commercially. It was also very special as I was the hand printer working on the sampling table at the wonderful Ivos Print when the design came to be sampled – basically sorting the colour and scale of the final print out. So I got to sample my own design – a real thrill!

Virginia wanted something lacey for her fabric collection and kindly asked me if I could design anything. So I went away, rummaged in my old fabric collection (a fabric black hole) and started work on a woodblock design based on a piece of antique french lace. I didn’t work straight from the lace but made shadows with it, which were slightly wonkier and got under the skin of the pattern a bit more. Doing this gave me the kind of information I needed to start drawing and cutting the block: sometimes it helps to make things look a bit strange first, then you see them in a fresher way.

Once I’d cut the block and taken the print, I scanned the prints and worked to scale up the design using photoshop. Photoshop saves a lot of time scaling up repeats but I’ve never been able to make very good marks with it so always prefer using hand made art work. Then Amelia in the Ivo design studio helped me transfer my print onto a large screen, advised by factory manager and general print genius Podge and produced by screen maker extraordinaire Chris.

This part of the process can be very tricky as you have to balance the hand made marks of the block print with the requirements of the commercial screen printing machinery. Luckily, Ivos have a very skilled team to do this as this would have been impossible for me to do on my own.

When it came to sampling the new design – basically exploring the best colours, scale and materials to print on – I worked with Monique and Jo on the hand-table, and then Chris and Ian took over to print show lengths on their galli machines. Virginia’s bold use of colour was sometimes a bit of a challenge for me, as she often told me she didn’t want anything crafty looking, but this was great as it shifted me out of my comfort zone.

The whole process, taking many months – was a real team effort and opened my eyes to the reality of designing and making – which always involves drawing heavily on the expertise and knowledge of others rather than sitting designing on your own in a little bubble.

The experience also brought together my two different worlds – working as a hand printer at Ivos and producing my own designs. It’s helped me to understand the pressures and constraints of commercial production and overall helped me become a better designer.

Since designing Honor & Honoria, I have produced two more block print designs – ‘Sompting’ and ‘Tirzah’, all available from the Virginia White Collection

Time for lunch time with the factory girls!

The post How a design goes from hand block print to factory screen print… appeared first on Sarah Burns Patterns.

Mostly Chris prints the most amazing designs that use over 10 screens so this single colour was a doddle for him. He even spotted that the repeat is about 1mm out. Chris is our printing guru (just like his dad Podge) and he looks out for Mon and I spotting any mistakes we’re making before we’ve even made it. Naturally we adore him because he’s such a master craftsman and also because he’s so nice.

First Chris prints every other repeat, then he goes down the 50m table a second time and fills in the gaps when the first print is dry. Most days he walks over 10km!!

Here I am looking very pleased at how my little lino cut design has been transformed into a 50m length, something that would take me at least a week to do at home. I remember from when I studied politics, reading an essay by Walter Benjamin called ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ – which wasn’t very kind about processes like this which it claimed destroyed the spirit of the original by endlessly reproducing it…. reproduction does change the original but not necessarily into something less, it can also distill essential parts and help to simplify it as well.

Anyway, as a designer, it’s something very beautiful to watch when your idea becomes reality and you see it being produced and going into peoples homes. I also remember something I think Liubov Popova, the friend of the constructivist designer Vavara Rodchenko and a wonderful painter and designer herself said – how she would far prefer for an ordinary woman to buy 1m of her fabric in a department store than her painting to be hung in a famous gallery and just seen by just a few.

The post Crafted in the Factory appeared first on Sarah Burns Patterns.