COLLABORATIVE PROJECT

The collaborative project started off with the whole year sitting around the table as group and suggest ideas of what we could make. I was writing the ideas upside down, hence why the writing looks bizarre. 

Apart from the quilt and the coaster, most of the ideas are paper based- such as cards, posters etc. These would easier to create as we all have experience printing/ making books as opposed to sewing a quilt or making something out of ceramics. It is also easier to have something paper based as a promotional item as it would be more practical to take to shows/ send to publishers/ hand out. 

After the initial big brainstorm Esther became the ring leader and created our Third Year Collaboration page on facebook. Here she took all our ideas from above and set up a Facebook poll so we could each vote for the idea we wanted to pursue.

The vote (which it seems not everyone voted on anyway) showed that postcards were the most popular, and it was agreed that that's what we would go ahead with. Bryony brought up the point of whether all our postcards would follow a theme of if we would do what we want, and I suggested

that a theme or colour palette would be a good way to make all our postcards cohesive, but also allow enough creative wiggle space to 'reflect our individual skills and interests' as Bryony put it. 

On this same comment thread we arranged to have another meeting so we could finalise a theme and how we were going to make the postcards.

We decided on screen printing everyones postcards and we would hold another vote on colours. We also thought the theme could be an image based on your favourite book or poem, an idea that we went ahead with.

Number 5 ended up being the chosen colour scheme- which consisted of rose, turquoise and paynes grey. George F. created a document of instructions for everyone to follow. 

Based on the theme 'favourite book/poem' I started sketching out some thumbnails based on a few of my favourites; The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, It by Stephen King, and the poem 'A Variation on the Word Sleep' by Margaret Atwood.

It thumbnails

Variation on the Word Sleep thumbnails

Bell Jar thumbnails

more Bell Jar thumbnails 

Another point that was brought up was the matter of text, so I barged in to make a comment:

Another poll was made, but for me it didn't make it much clearer

In the end I voted for the website to go on the back of the postcards, and then I assume if people want to include other words in their image then they can.

I went on to create the final image for the screenprint and went through a few images until I was happy. At first I started off using more tone than I should have, forgetting that screen printing doesn't print like risograph!

 The above were too tonal so I recreated the image using more solid black:

 However this image was too busy so I tried paring the image down and thought about using more solid shapes and less scribbles which made it look so messy.

Above is my final design, which would hopefully look like below when printed in the chosen colour:

Casey coated the screens for us and Chris and Jordan took charge printing all the postcards. I went in one of the days to help, and pulled a few grey layers. I also suggested using the acetate 'registration guide' each time when printing- as a few of the pink and turquoise layers had become slightly offset.

It was also noted during this time that the paper we were using was thinner than usual postcard 'card'- and because we weren't printing the typical postcard stamp outline and address lines on the back, the postcards were looking more like a6 prints. This was brought up on Facebook, and it was decided that we would chip in to buy thicker card for the postcards to be more sturdy.

However after a long search Chris and Jordan could not find any thicker card that wasn't outrageously expensive, so they went ahead printing on the thicker paper they had started on.

After adding the grey layer on everyones prints they were ready to cut, and Sophie took up that task.

I think this wasn't an easy task as the postcards were not all straight on the paper, and some people didn't have borders (me being one of them, sorry Sophie!) but she did a marvellous job and everyone was happy.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of my screen print. I think I used the colours well and the composition I used meant that it didn't become over crowded and oversaturated like some other peoples. 

I think I took part quite a lot with each different part of the collaborative project, and I am happy with the input I gave, I helped along the way and gave my opinion when I it was asked (and also when it wasn't)