I have been thinking for a while now how I could promote my business, and one idea I had was to screen print cards with the rendering of my art barn. I have written a lot of blog posts over the years about Thermofax screen printing on fabric, but I have historically had minimal success on paper; I often end up with blurred imagery.  However, I was really glad I was able to watch Lynn Krawczyk’s brand new DVD,  Thermofax Screen Printing Essentials because she had some fantastic tips for screening on all types of substrates:

It’s easy to see why Lynn was asked to create a DVD on Thermofax screen printing. Just check out all of these luscious fabrics of hers (currently in my possession…I am hesitant to send any of them back because I can’t stop petting them)!

After watching her DVD, I thought about giving it a go to create greeting cards.  I first created a photocopy of the image in Photoshop that I then burned onto a screen.

And for the first time, per the DVD,  I used Jacquard’s Puff Additive, and mixed with Golden Fluid acrylics. The Puff Additive has just enough tooth to it to yield a very sharp image on paper, whether you later want to apply a heat gun to emboss it, or not.

I experimented with different colors, different amounts of pressure when pulling the paint down the screen to get a more organic result.

And now I have my first set of cards to send out to the greater world.

Lynn has a lot of wonderful tips in her DVD and she masterfully and easily explains the processes from start to finish. In celebration of her DVD launch, she is giving away two screens of choice to a randomly selected reader of this blog entry. A question I have is, if you could create a screen of an image, what subject matter or image would you choose?  Just leave a comment below and you’ll be in the running!

To check out other ideas for screen printing and surface design, have a look at these bloggers also participating in this blog hop:

Maddie Kertay

Lisa Chin

Briana Goetzen

Dawn DeVries Sokol

Pam Carriker (goes up tomorrow)

Lynn Krawczyk (Sunday)

Things starting to come together here in Napa!

The crew who are making this barn a reality.

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The barn has doors at last, and I am really happy I chose a transparent glass for the garage doors so that the views are intact and allow for a lot of natural light to flow inside.

The interior is being worked on now…it’s not completed but I am happy with the clean lines, the cement floor finish, and the white-washed ceilings and paneling (vs. painted)  so that the grain of the woods still show.

Just to get a sense of how art would look hanging inside, we temporarily hung a trio of Lynn Krawczyk’s fabric collages from the loft.

This space is coming together, but it’ll still be months before it’s completed.

In the meantime,  I recently announced on social media the first CRAFT NAPA retreat taking place next January 7-9, 2016 at the Embassy Suites! Workshops range from sewing and quilting, to fabric and paper collage, and surface design. Teachers include Carrie Bloomston, Jane LaFazio, Jamie Fingal, Leslie Jenison, Lynn Krawczyk, Jenny K. Lyon, Judy Coates Perez, Elizabeth St. Hilaire, and Melanie Testa. There are a few fun night events planned including a “Make Your Own Wine” competition with a BERNINA giveaway, an Artist Market, and late night sip-n-sews in the bar featuring some fun stitching projects. You can find out more about this retreat on this web page. The site and the schedule are close to completion, and registration goes live next Wednesday. If you want to get any e-newsletters relating to CRAFT NAPA, you can sign up for more news, stories, and information here.