Journal Day 56

Today was stressful. Long and stressful. There are quite a few things that I'm discovering about printing that I don't like. When I'm tired and stressed I tend to hate them. Printing takes a long time. Well, actually screen printing only takes minutes, for a length of fabric. But preparing everything can take hours.

Today, in order to print a pattern I spent 6 hours preparing the screen. Admitedly I went in this morning with no real idea of how I wanted my pattern to look, and had to do lots of the little odd end jobs too. But then i faffed about with a photocopy machine and then messed up my template, causing me to have to start again. Then when it came to printing I only had 30 minutes left, and so rushed, ending up forgetting an important step in the process and leaving a great big line of ink on my fabric. Woops! Then by the time I had finished preparing the screen (fully) the ink had dried up on the screen and my second print was also a fail!

It took me hours today to do what felt like nothing. I was waiting for others, doing silly little jobs, and generally faffing about. It does not feel productive to work like that. However tomorrow will be the opposite; I will be able to print within 30 minutes of being in the studio. And from there I will hopefully be able to print two lengths of fabric plus create a christmas tree decoration. Hopefully tomorrow will be much more productive!

Plus I have to say that as this project goes on, and I do more random drawings that I don't feel good about, I feel like I am producing no work that is good. In fact this screen print is the first bit of work I have produced other than a worksheet for this project. And when I look at everyone else's work I'm jealous. I wish I could have ideas like that. I want to work harder for this, but I need to be inspired. Title's like 10 x 10 x 10 are not inspiring for me!! I may have to find my own titles.... or well, actually pay attention to the titles (I haven't at all for this and the exhibition has to go up on Wednesday!)

So, I feel that I need to work harder on doing what I like and what I'm good at. I need to work harder at being inspired. I need to do more drawings, just because I don't like to. Producing work from observational drawings is common in textiles and printing, and is something I need to practice.

Oh well... I'm off to eat some jaffa cakes...

Abiento x