Screen printing the Performers

Sorry for not being very active on the blog at the moment. The beginning of the month has been pretty busy with the rentrée des classes (back to school) for the children and the trade show at Maison et Objet last week. We had a great time showing all our products and our new collection. A big thank you to all of you who stopped by.
Next week I am flying to Japan to launch the book Be Creative with Famille Summerbelle with Edition Paumes. For the occasion we will do an exhibition of Famille Summerbelle work at Galerie Doux Dimanche in Tokyo, Aoyama. I am very excited to meet the lovely people I have been working with over the past few months and also to (re)discover Tokyo and Kyoto. I am traveling with my mum who will also exhibit her ceramic work at the Galerie Doux Dimanche. More on this very soon.

For now I wanted to share with you the process of hand screen printing our latest prints Ludo Le Lapin and Maximilien Le Magicien.
This is what I really love about my work. The designing bit and then follow closely the making of our products. So here we go...


Each colour is separated and printed in black on an acetate film. The film is placed over a mesh silkscreen and exposed for few minutes over the lightbulb. The image will be burned in reverse into the silkscreen. The screen is then washed out under a high powered shower head and dried.








Each screen is carefully checked to make sure no holes appear around the design. Here is the head of our magician with all the tiny holes that have been blocked off.




Now the fun bit, choosing and mixing the colours! I love this shelf with all the pots of emulsion lined up.




We are mixing the pink for the ears of the rabbit and the face of the magician. The ink is spread evenly with the squeegee to the silkscreen. We are just making a small sample to test the colour. Once we are happy with it we start printing on a larger scale.






The ears and nose of the rabbit are drying before we can apply the next colour.




Et voila! Ludo Le Lapin. Same process for the other colours. It's such a fun exercise and seeing the design appear after each layer of colour is very satisfying!












Maximilien Le Magicien.