The images above are from the one day beginners Paper Printing workshop that I ran at 3rd Rail Print Space this weekend. This wasn’t the first time I have tutored a workshop, but it was the first time since before Lockdown, so I was a little nervous at first. We ended up having a slight hiccup where a few of the screens were exposed with the designs the wrong way round, but we managed to sort it out and get everyone finished on time with their limited edition of 10 prints, and we got good reviews! I am very pleased that I managed to handle the problem so well and it has made me feel a bit more confident in myself.
Workshops
T-shirt Printing Workshop
Workshops
This weekend I assisted with a one day beginners t-shirt printing workshop at 3rd Rail Print Space!
We started off in the morning by running through the plan for the day, then encouraging everyone to either draw their design, or give us their digital design to edit on Photoshop before we printed it onto film for them. This was our first post-lockdown workshop so of course we had a few changes to make the the way we usually run the workshops- everyone needed to wear a mask at all times, we encouraged students to bring their own cups for hot drinks, and we offered gloves and hand sanitiser as well as adding extra cleaning into the day. We showed the students how to clean a screen ready for coating, and then we demonstrated how to coat a screen- usually we would then have each student coat their own screen, but to minimise the risks we had all the screens ready coated (apart from the demo screen we used). We then got everyone to bring in their artwork either on film or trace and lead them through the process of exposing artwork onto the screens and washing the emulsion off. Once the screens were in the dryer we then moved onto choosing and mixing colours, before breaking for lunch.
After lunch we took everyone through taping up their screens and setting up for the actual printing on the carousel, getting students to pair up to help each other print. Everyone left with their limited edition of 5 screen-printed t-shirts and were very happy!
Paper Printing Workshop
Internship at 3rd Rail, WorkshopsAbove: Images from the one day paper printing workshop at 3rd rail Print Space
This workshop was my first time as Workshop Tutor, rather than Assistant, with an adult group for 3rd Rail Print, running a paper printing workshop. I was super nervous as I usually assist but I’m really pleased with how it went- we ran to schedule, finished on time, and everyone gave good feedback and were pleased with their prints! I think going forwards I will feel more comfortable to lead a workshop in future, although I am still happy to assist as well.
T-shirt Printing Workshop
Internship at 3rd Rail, WorkshopsAbove: photos taken during the 1 day t-shirt printing workshop I assisted with today at 3rd Rail Print Space
Today we had a larger group of 8 people for the t-shirt printing workshop so we overran a little bit, but it was very successful- everyone enjoyed the day and was very happy with their limited edition run of t-shirts. Some of the attendees came with digital designs which they needed help with using Photoshop, and some of them drew their designs in the morning- it was a nice mix and we managed to split the group quite nicely to two by digital or hand drawn designs to teach the various stages of the process. Lots of cool designs- my favourite was the hand drawn Dali lobster phone illustration!
Paper Printing Workshop at 3rd Rail
WorkshopsToday I assisted the running of a one day paper printing workshop at 3rd Rail Print Space! It involved setting up the space ready for the participants, then assisting them and the workshop leader Melissa throughout the day, and cleaning the space and equipment afterwards.
We had a mixture of people who had never screen printed before and people who had dabbled a little in attendance, so we had to be quite hands on and thorough, dividing our attention as necessary. The aim of the workshop was for the attendees to leave with an edition of 10 prints that they designed, prepped the screens for, and printed themselves; so we began by getting them to either draw their designs then and there, or prep their digital designs to be printed onto film. We then took them through the process of prepping a screen for coating and the actual coating- each person was expected to coat their own screen after a demonstration. Once the screens where ready we took them through the exposing process (where the designs are transferred onto the screens). After lunch we then asked them to choose their colours and demonstrated how to do the actual printing- we both assisted where needed and where on hand to guide them if they needed help.
Working with adults is always a little different to working with children- if a child suggests an idea that is tricky to do, for whatever reason, they can usually be persuaded to simplify their idea- but if an adult has a difficult to pull off idea they are often adamant about doing it their way, even if they are completely new to the process. This can be quite frustrating when you are trying to run a workshop and make everything go smoothly, but it is a good way to hone conflict resolution skills and get used to being more flexible.
Arebyte Gallery: VR Workshop with Studio Above and Below
WorkshopsThis weekend as part of the London City Island Open Studios event I assisted with running a virtual reality workshop at Arebyte Gallery with Studio Above and Below ! This workshop was designed for local children to engage with their surroundings in a new way by Studio Above and Below, and I was there to assist and make sure the workshop ran smoothly. We introduced the children to the concept of Virtual Reality, and using the maps SA&B had already made of the island we encouraged them to draw and add to the maps to use later. We installed the VR application onto their mobile phones, and then took the children out on a walk around the island to photograph interesting textures and colours on their phones- these were then uploaded into the application! We then went back outside to try out our new textures and shapes, using the maps and the app to make our drawings and textures come to life as VR sculptures on our phone screens! This was my first time working with VR and it was really fascinating assisting and learning more about how VR works and can be utilised to engage people in art and the world around them!
(Video clips to follow, I still need to edit them and upload to Vimeo/Youtube)
T-Shirt Printing Workshop at The Playground
Residency at The Playground, WorkshopsI was asked to pitch two workshops as part of my artist residency at The Playground- one of these was a t-shirt printing workshop based on the one I ran earlier in the month at 3rd Rail Print Space. It was for adults accessing the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) mental health services nearby at Maudsley Hospital on Denmark Hill. This was the first time I have ran a workshop for an older audience, but it went really well!
We asked each participant to come up with a drawing on paper to then turn into a paper stencil using a craft knife. I assisted with this when needed, then demonstrated how to use the paper stencil and a silkscreen to print onto a t-shirt using the inks provided- we encouraged them to help each other during this process, and also encouraged experimenting with marbling the inks on the surface of the screen. One of the resulting prints is shown above (God is the world photo).
Overall I was really pleased with how this workshop went, especially given it was my first time working with adults! Everyone seemed pleased with the t-shirts they made, and I think it ended on a really positive note. Engaging the local community in the arts like this is something I am really passionate about and hope to develop further in the future- not just with children but with teenagers, vulnerable adults, and adults who might have an interest in art but no experience. If we want the art world to truly be more accessible to everyone then workshops like this are really crucial, and I hope to keep doing work like this.
Collages (Prep for Zine Making Workshop)
Residency at The Playground, WorkshopsI’m running a drop in zine making workshop for young people as part of my artist residency at The Playground next week, so I bought some newspapers last week to make an example zine to show at the workshop. This is the result so far! These collages will be made into the zine (hopefully).
The above collage is a poem called “What Happens Next?”
This collage is called “Jacob Memes Mogg, or We Won’t Take This Lying Down”
This one is called “Cheeky Homophobia”
And finally the “Nigel Farage Poem” (not the most creative title but it does what it says on the tin!)
I think given the current political climate this is an apt piece of work, and the zine will possibly called “Dangerous Men” or something along those lines, because although these men are often the subject of memes and jokes they are in fact very dangerous men. I’m actually really pleased with these so far, it was my first chance to be properly creative in a few weeks and I knocked these out in a couple of hours! Life is stressful after uni, but it’s moments of creativity like this that make it worth it.
Paper Stencil Kids Workshops
Internship at 3rd Rail, Workshops
Today I ran two back to back kids workshops at 3rd Rail Printspace (where I am currently interning). Both workshops had the same format, with the same end goal- every child drawing and cutting their own paper stencil design to then print their own t-shirt with.
They both went as follows:
- Introduction to the task
- showing the children a paper stencil in progress (i.e. some of the drawing still visible, some of it cut out already)
- Getting the children to draw their own designs, assisting with the cutting out with a craft knife or scissors where needed (children were only to use safety scissors provided, not the knives)
- doing a print demonstration using one of the children’s artworks- placing the t-shirt onto the carousel (already prepped with adhesive), taping the paper stencil to the shirt, putting the screen down onto the shirt, getting the child to choose the colours they wanted, blobbing the ink directly onto the screens using a paint brush, then pulling the ink across the screens with a squeegee
- leading the printing, and pulling the ink if the child didn’t feel confident doing it and cleaning screens between children with rags and water
- supervising the children blow drying their designs with a hair dryer
Prep done before the workshops:
- mixing the pigments with binder (making the inks up basically)
- applying adhesive to the t-shirt carousel board
- stripping, cleaning and degreasing the 3 screens used
- taping up the screens
- cutting rags
- drawing a rough stencil design and partially cutting it as an example
- checking numbers and getting the correct amount and sizes of t-shirts out ready
- setting out cutting mats, paper, scissors, erasers and pencils for the children
- setting out t-shirt examples from previous workshops
Overall I am really pleased with how they both went! The first group was comprised of 12 11 year olds, and the second of 10 13 year olds, which are larger groups than I am used to leading an activity for, but I think I handled it really well- all the kids seemed to really enjoy it and were happy with their t-shirts! Both of them ran over time a bit, but I think with a bit more prep work and now having the experience I can keep them within the time limits in future.
World Capital at Arebyte
Assessment, Exhibitions, UNIT 2, WorkshopsAs part of the exhibition World Capital at Arebyte Gallery I was asked to come in and run a workshop for the local children, inspired by the exhibition. World Capital explores how cities and city planning has become homogenized due to capitalism and globalization- with newer parts of cities being impossible to distinguish from other cities across the world. The artist, Felicity Hammond, explores this topic through digital collage, and the gallery space was turned into a collaged city, complete with water ways which mirrored the installation and created an almost ethereal space in the gallery.
Globalisation and capitalism are bit much to explain to young children, and we weren’t sure what kind of age range we would attract for the workshop so I decided to focus on the ideas of collage and building a “world capital”. Rather than asking the children to simply sit and do a collage themselves I wanted to push it into 3D, much like the artist herself had created a 3D collage in the space. With this in mind I researched free downloadable nets of famous landmarks, and also some more simple buildings like schools/ect. I designed a file of the river Thames on Illustrator, which I had printed 150cm x 50cm, which we spread out over the tables in the gallery space, and we asked the children to join us in putting together the famous landmarks and buildings with glue and scissors. When they had made a variety of landmarks (with our help) we then asked them to “build their own world capital” by placing the landmarks they had made around the river, to create their own ideal city- complete with pyramids, Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the statue of Liberty, and lots of other international buildings!
Rebecca, the curator at Arebyte, helped me to run the workshop and we both had lots of fun, as did the children who came along! They liked it so much that they asked to take the huge river print and all of the buildings they made home with them. I felt that it was super successful, and it is important that art galleries offer fun, free, accessible activities to children- especially children who otherwise would not get the chance (i.e. children from low income backgrounds, children with special needs, act).
Some photos of the “World Capital” we built! ^
KAT OUTTEN 