New prints on fabric arrive
Of course, I immediately started looking to how I could improve them, but the batch of giant prints on fabric have arrived, and they are great, I love them. And they are BIG!
A4 Scanner takes it's own sweet time
With the intention of scanning some super high resolution images, I invested in a new A4 flatbed scanner: a Canoscan Lide 400 by Canon.
This enabled me to enlarge A4 drawings to a print size 1m x 1.5m without loss of quality.
Technology Woes
The scanner was fairly cranky and I was a bit Cranky Frankie after an hour on live chat and telephone at 10pm. with the Canon support technician trying to find out how to scan above 600 ppi - which, after all was the main selling point of the scanner.
I have to say the scanner is very over sold. It can scan up to 4800 in theory but it is extremely slow. I scanned at 1200ppi in around 8 minutes and then 2400ppi took more like 20 minutes. Perhaps longer.
It also claims on the blurb that you can send a scan to an email address by pressing the button on the front. But - this is only if you're connected to a laptop. It will not talk to my iPad. Therefore it is not portable yet. 🥲
Fabric prints from Contrado
I used Contrado for the fabric prints. Based in London, with their own factory, they are generally pretty fast. However on this occasion I kept getting email alerts saying there was a delay with the order of test strips.
I had allowed about 3 weeks for safe turnaround of these prints to get ready for the show and suddenly I was quite worried they might not come in time. It's a huge space, with a 6 metre length wall. I needed those biguns!
So I had to go ahead and risk of production of the final prints, after I'd received the test strips late and wasn't that pleased with them. Contrado are VERY resistant indeed to redoing or refunding anything. And that's tough, because it's difficult to proof small samples. And expensive when you factor in the postage. But in the end I am quite pleased with them.
Here is the Lillian print.
Next project
I'm thinking of applying for an Arts Council grant to continue and extend this exploration of ways to reproduce small images on a large scale.
I love the flexibility of textiles (literally) and the speed and affordability of CMYK printing onto fabrics. But dyed fabrics have a far more intense and vibrant colour. I'm wondering about screen printing too but have no prior experience or knowledge of it.
There's something so much more dynamic about textiles and applied arts mediums than the static canvas on the wall. Flipside, canvas originals are a well understood, fine art currency of exchange. But Grayson Perry won the Turner Prize with pots, so hopefully people can respect art on fabric.
Exhibition
Venue 7 of the Salisbury Art Trail 2024
Looking forward to displaying these in public from 5 June to 9 June, top floor of Sonder Coffee on Salisbury High Street, UK. Please come along, it will be amazing to meet you and I'm interested to hear your feedback and find out about your interest in art.
See full details of the event.
