Creating the designs

The first design theme I choose was from the television series True Blood.  The plan was to create designs that would suit the screen print process and the texture of the wood. I will use the colour schemes from the B-movies in my research and my designs and illustrative style will be influenced by the folk art of Stuart Kolakosic.

I plan to decorate each side of the box slightly differently but still keeping within the theme and design style. The original aim was to create a series of boxes, each sticking guidelines above. Unfortunately as the making of the stool has been more time-consuming than first planned due to the wood not cutting and the laser cutter slots rarely being available. Instead I will make one and do a impression of what the others would have looked like using Photoshop.

Creating the first screen print.

Original sketch

For this design I have simply taken an image of the synthetic blood sold in the TV series and simplified it.  I will be using four colours (something I have never tried before) and in some places allowing the wood to show through to create a fifth. It is shown below going from initial sketch stage to a mockup on plywood.  I wanted to put onto scrap piece of ply before printing it onto the stool just in case it didn't work.

A possible idea for the other sides

Vector image

Working out the colours

...and order to print them in

Prepared area and inks

There was a lot of masking up areas involved

The print with just the black and dark red done

Lining up the colours with registration marks

black, dark red and white

experimenting with hand prints for other areas of the stool. Thinking of taking them into Illustrator and turning them into simple vectors so they tie in with the rest of the design.

The Final Print