Anne-Marie Battis Mosaic Studio

A few months ago I took an afternoon screen printing workshop through Spins & Needles, an Ottawa arts organization dedicated to promoting craft. My goal was to learn a new skill that could be used in furthering my mosaic art. The two crafts don’t seem to have anything to do with each other, but in fact I think the mosaic image makes an excellent stencil for screen printing.

Those of us taking the workshop were asked to bring transparencies of the images we wanted to work with. Using Photoshop, I made high-contrast images of several of my mosaics and printed them on transparencies. (Luckily, these once-standard items are still hanging around in the office supply closet.  I’ve been told these now sell for $50 a box!)

I ended up choosing my lizard mosaic to work with.  Here’s how the mosaic looks:

The process for making a screen for printing (also known as silk screening) is rather laborious. In the workshop we started from scratch, where we actually constructed our screens using a framing kit, screen material (not silk, but some kind of special high-tech fabric), and tools like a hammer and heavy-duty staples. I killed my hands with the manual staple gun. Even though it is good to know how to make the screen, I recently discovered that a local art supply shop sells them pre-made, which will be my choice next time.

I won’t go into the rest of the process, which eventually results in the chosen image being photographically embedded onto the screen where it is ready to be printed onto paper, fabric, etc. But I will show you some of my results, which I believe are quite pleasing.

These are printed on an old heavy cotton curtain. I also printed on T-shirts, and I intend to print more on stretched canvas. I’ll eventually put a few into my Etsy shop.

I’m hoping to get several more screens ready with some of my other mosaic images. This will mean going through those complicated steps to prepare the screens, Still, I would recommend to any artist to learn another craft or method that is seemingly unrelated to your chosen art. I’m wondering what to try next...