December 4, 2011

Night market... night, market

It's not an evening market, but it's starting to feel like one - Designer Mart Temple Bar Saturday's from about 3pm are turning into a quest/competition to see who can find the best battery-powered lighting sources. I had a pretty good go at it this week, only issue being that my led lights were so bright, they actually come with a warning not to look at the light directly... so, how to light my stall without, a) burning the stall to a crisp, and b) burning my customers' retinas... all the origami has come into use here as I fashioned a tissue flower to cover the lights, giving a romantic glow...

however, next week will be less about making the table pretty, more about lighting so that the prints can be seen (ever the Libran, all style, no substance)!

October 25, 2011

two posts in one week..?!




                                 


Take that google-bots, two blog-posts in one week, amazin'! Anyway, I shan't delay as attempting to dry off after two days of soakage. Pics above are exclusively of The Printing Rooms. Delighted with the finished shop look, it really looks fantastic, and so say our new customers. Spent my first day sans siopa yesterday... and after a year of working non-stop, I literally didn't know what to do with myself... so I kept moving things, then moving them back. 


Now for some pics of the rest of the shop, and mostly you will see beautiful hats and fascinators from the lovely Laura Cassidy Design - she's becoming very popular with the good folk of Dun Laoghaire, and hopefully she's staying dry in there today! Don't forget to pop in and say hello, we're open Monday - Saturday, 10-6, Thursday 10-7, and Sunday 11-5. Opening eve 6-9 this Thursday. No excuses, map below - get on down, and don't be worrying about the rain, Ms. Cassidy has the cutest hand-made rain hats to keep the do nice and dry! We're only there for 5 weeks, so, as the ad goes when (they're) we're gone we're gone!!



October 22, 2011

STUDIO3 POP-UP - OPEN TODAY!



Quick update, really this time. Have been working on a pop-up for the last few months (hard slog!) and it's finally open today at 10am!! It's a really beautiful space and we were very lucky to have a visual merchandiser involved to set it up and make it look BOOTIFUL... and it does. Also involved in Studio3 is the fab Laura Cassidy Design.

I'm showing my newest prints, and my linen canvases and finally my first test hand-printed cushions. Any peeps around the Dun Laoghaire way, pop in our pop up (map below) and say aloha, ola, howya, dia dhuit... whatever you like. Oh, and opening night is Thursday 27th October, so after you've cast your vote for David Norris (weeellll, come on) then come over and grab a glass of wine.

August 24, 2011

Spud Printing Course in June


okokok, I've had it with promises... promises that I make and fail to keep, so *embarrassed cough* I'll just get on with this blog post without further apologies, and start with some nice pics.



It feels like a long long time ago (end of June), but my potato printing course is long overdue a mention. I've had many many lovely days since I started working for myself (Jan 2011), but I suppose this day was lovely in that it was surprising: how much I enjoyed it, how much I gained from it, and a boost I needed at the time (post-exhibition come-down and a reminder that I never did a blog re the exhibition... jeese). Had a really great bunch of students, who got some really great results, and whatever you might think of the humble potato printing, it's started me on the road to my new range of textiles. There is an awful lot of snobbery around some forms of printing, so I quite enjoy embracing these techniques... pure stubborness... and hope to surprise people with the results.


Hopefully I will have more classes in the future - there have been an awful lot of requests for lino printing classes, so when space and time permits, it's a definite plan in the making. In the meantime, if you are interested in future classes, email me and you'll be added to the growing list!




July 31, 2011

Apologies and new stuff to shout about!

Apologies to the google-bots that we've been away from our blog for so long. No excuses apart from being busy researching new products. So, sorries over, let's move on and quickly tell you about that.

Firstly, have spent the last month researching... the plan was always to move into textiles, and to expand the printing range. Having spent 7 years living in London, one grá I left with was for print: the design of print, pattern, and textiles (ultimate fantasy, had always imagined myself in a fancy, bright, trendy studio designing and making naive prints, with stockists lining up to buy... so that's totally come true.. ).

The love of textile print has always been buried deep somewhere, but when I started The Printing Rooms, I started with what I was familiar with... lino cuts. Moving into textiles was always going to be tricky, especially since I didn't know how to machine sew. So off I took myself to 3 sewing classes, and practise practise practise, et voila, new-found machine-sewing skills. With that, I have managed to create a range of hand-printed cushions. I didn't have the space/money to purchase a lot of screen-printint paraphenalia, so used what I had to hand. I made the ultimate recession-friendly print, using the humble spud (which reminds me, blog is due on the potato printing course I did back in June, when I fell in love with teaching!). See what you think of the results above and below. All are printed on linen unions, and cottons, all materials sourced here!

 
Flutter Clutter Cushions on whhite linen union

                                 

April 24, 2011

Exhibition preparation


Firstly, spare my spelling - it is 4.45am of an Easter Sunday and I suppose the low-lying stress levels will do this to a tired mind & body from time-to-time. In other words, I can't sleep, so thought I'd make the most of the time, by updating the blog, and watching the cat eat a very large black spider... saved me having to get a pot, cardboard over the top to chuck it out the window (the spider, not the cat).

Pic above is the invite that we emaield around for the exhibition. Really pleased with it. Didn't have a huge amount of time to spend on it, but it just came together quite quickly. It was a happy day of things coming together, including receiving notice that my press release hadn't just been lost in the ether, but had in fact landed in at least one press inbox. Hopefully I'll have a few media snippets to share with over the coming weeks.

Ah, the frames, the frames! My wonderful framer delivered my frames to me on Thursday. They are so beautifully made (he's a carpenter/joiner by trade) - very very pleased. Can (sort of) relax now... ha! Anyway, all the printing is done (may decide to do one further print - will certainly carve up the lino and see how we get on) but all in all, I have more prints then I had set out to do in the short space I had (was only asked to do the exhibition at beginning of March), and whilst the Gallery is a large space (nervous nervous), I think I should be ok.. watch this space!

April 17, 2011

The makings of a new stall and other stuff!

Slightly better day at Designer Mart yesterday, simply because I was able to move stall. Wind still an issue for first 2 stalls by Exchange Dublin. There were lots of crashing sounds coming from Laura Cassidy's stand, but thankfully none of her beautiful range was damaged. As for The Printing Rooms, the newest and smallest range are trickling in. Available framed and un-framed, they measure just 9cm x 4.5cm... almost needed a tweezer to get these printing. Have a look at my favourite, 'Floating'. This was done trialing a new printing method, using a metallic pigment. The plate was first printed with the base colour, then then the pigment was placed over the ink, re-rolled, then rolled through the press. An extender was mixed with the ink to give it a more translucent look. Delighted with the result, as wanted to have an ethereal/underwater feel, and think/hope that's been achieved.



Now, onto the Designer Mart stall. Trying to keep it creative and that over-used word, organic, by adding and trialling new areas/pieces over the coming weeks, and hopefully we'll have it sussed by the Summer months. Yesterday, I added a line extending inwards towards the stand, and, aptly hung the 'Flutterbyebye' range of prints. Next week will do the same on the other side of the stand. Trying to create a sort of symmetry, but it's trial&error, what with the perils of outdoor markets...bunting is on the horizon, but is currently a little dot. Hoping that once the madness of the exhibition has died down (5th May opening, pop it in the diary), that can be something fun to try.. or frustrating, depending. 

Finally, introducing the newest addition to the 'Mini' range of prints: 'Twit Twooh, an edition of 30, first 10 done in a fawn/gold colour, and further colours to be introduced over the following few weeks. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, as will certainly be posting the newest colours up once complete. and once all 30 are printed, they will be ready for the website. One is already 'winging' (sorry, that was terrible) it's way back to Australia with a happy holiday purchase from Designer Mart!

April 10, 2011

General Update.. and a bit of a moan!

Started updating the blog last night, after a rotten day at Designer Mart (well?! it's true, it was) ; was trying to notch it down as a bad day at the office. Waking up on a day like today, all the negativity is gone. All we can push for is fairer placements for next week, and that we can all relax a bit. Moan over!

Exhibition preparation is well under way. Prints are with our fantastic framer, and we may decide to include a few more small prints, but the focus over the next few weeks will be making new work for Designer Mart and our website. We'll be printing up some new minis, and will include a range of framed mini-minis (might have to re-think that title!), so hoping for lots of interests and lots of sales!

Watch this space... or rather, keep watching this space. Will be posting a brief update tomorrow on our bounty of treasures!

April 3, 2011

EXHIBITION PREPARATION

We're moving ever closer to the opening of the exhibition  on 5th May, 'Lino I Know', so we thought we'd give you a brief update on the work that's been keeping us so busy.



Drawn plates

When Fán was asked to give a solo exhibition by Temple Bar Cultural Trust she agreed to it despite the tight timescales (asked at end of February, which isn't a huge amount of time to prepare, given that framing normally take upwards of 3-4 weeks).

Printing-lots of it

She began working on several new pieces immediately, and without wanting to give too much away, here are the drawn plates for the first piece completed.


The planning stage took over a week for this piece, the cutting another 10 days, and the printing seemed to go on forever. In total this took just over a month. We've included a picture to show you just some of the prints made in any give day - tired just looking!


Preparing the image

The next prints to made (yet to be printed) are the A3's, The Printing Rooms biggest prints so far. They have taken time, patience, some tears/tantrums, quite a bit of feet-stamping, and just a little bit of avoidance and a find-other-things-to-do-that-are-really-important... like washing-up, always loved washing up. In all, just to prepare to draw, these have taken 3 weeks - there are 3 in total. Here's part of the planning stage, just mapping out where each piece and part of the finished print should go.
cutting of plates, stage 1



Once the research and drawing stage was complete, was time transfer onto the lino plates, ready for cutting. A few days tweaking later, the drawings were on the plate, in reverse and ready for cutting. Cutting stage 1, about 3 days; re-drawing areas and cutting again, another 2. Several neurofen later, the plates are (almost) ready to print. And, ah, the printing part if another difficulty, as new inks had to be ordered, as well as some beautiful Velin d'Arches (a gorgeous rough 200gsm paper) for the actual printing, which has taken time to source and order and delivery.


So, wish her luck, printing starts tomorrow and we'll keep you all updated with progress and with exhibition imformation.






March 27, 2011

STALL RE-DESIGN PENDING!

Designer Mart week 3 was a cold afair.. I suspect we were all waiting for the glorious sunshiiiine that we had all week, but alas, it never shone in our direction.

Now that we're relative pros at the ol' market selling, (I need to put 'not' in here somewhere. We used to say that a lot when I was about 14, " I really like your new jeans/jumper/boyfriend.... NOTTT".. that kinda thing) we need to think about re-designing our stall and getting more customers in our direction. A few ideas have cropped up, but mainly we've been doing a little research and web trawling to find some inspirational ideas, so we thought we'd share those with you! Apologies for the weeny images, I'll link each image to the actual page where I can!


LINK: http://goo.gl/FpsSp 

Jesus, this one's the real deal - I am both deeply impressed and insanely jealous of this stand. Obviously this person has spent years doing stalls... at the very least years, and then several more years on top of that. The colours and display are just spot on - it's a display that entirely encompasses the product it's trying to sell - kudos, it's amazing.

LINK: http://goo.gl/mB2Br
This was the first one I came across, and like it because it's something that we can use for the display of our prints. We've been struggling for weeks to figure out how we can get some height onto our stand, and with thanks to this image, we (think) we (may) have cracked it - watch this space!



Finally, Operation bunting will be taking place very soon. We figure bunting goes a long way to separate out your stall, so we're hoping to get sewing happy (with the help of a borrowed sewing machine and a borrowed friend).  So most of these stands are very cutesy, which is fine, but we will certainly borrowing ideas and inspiration from all sources and using our printing gene to, quite lid'erally (excuse the pun) stamp on it!



March 20, 2011

Designer Mart - Day TWOOO

OK, so last week we might have fibbed a little. It wasn't intentional, but we did say (with determination) that we would be updating our blog more often... we haven't, and here we are a week later. We are doing a lot of hand-wringing, and foot-shuffling by way of apology and promise to try harder; but what with the daily printing, the Designer Mart at Cow's Lane EVERY SATURDAY (am I shouting?), and the exhibition to prepare for (did we mention the exhibition... several times.. one more won't hurt: 5th May, Culture Box, Temple Bar)...


Excuses, excuses. So great second day at Designer Mart. Busy, and all Irish sales, so pleased with that, and great feedback too, so here's hoping for great things to come for The Printing Rooms. Speaking of great things, check out our mention, albeit brief in The Irish Times, Magazine section


Right, no rest for the self-employed. Off to print up colour no.1 of newest 'Mini' Series. Haven't decided yet on final colours, so will just enjoy the sunshine, the studio and the sometimes noxious odours of my (I could have said anything here) inks.

oh, and a pic to sign off with! a teaser for exhibition (5th May, Temple Bar, you know the rest!).

March 13, 2011

Designer Mart Day 1

Designer Mart set-up
Rightio, we've decided to clean up our act and start updating our blog regularly... at least more then we have anyway.. it won't be every day, or even every few days. I mean, let's face it some days we just wanna bury ourselves in the studio. Here you will find all our most up to date news, newsletter links, info on offers, all that kinda thang so keep reading!

Firstly, Designer Mart update. Twas our first week and was very lucky to be sharing with some great people - check out Laura Cassidy's work. Despite the rain it was a good day, busy enough down in Ye Old City, lots of foot traffic (and a dog in a rain jacket... seriously) and lots of interest. It was nice to be out & about with The Printing Rooms and we were pleased with our first table set-up (pic above). 

Already looking forward to getting back there next, although the knees are arguing the case very well.
If you missed this week's market, never fear, it's running every Saturday, 10am - 5pm, and get yo-self on our newsletter list as we'll be doing some great offers soon. 

February 16, 2011

TG4, Leaving Cert & Díospóireacht na gCeannairí










In ainneoin Gaeilge atá beagáinín rusty agus briste, beidh an blog (blag?) iomlán seo as Gaeilge in onóir díospóireacht TG ceathar anocht.

Táimse thar a bheith bródúil go bhfuil triúr cheannairí againn, a leabhairin dothain Ghaeilge le go bfheidfidís an díospóireacht seo a eagrú (i ndáirire, níl morán grá againn don triúr... Micheál ach ga h-áirithe... agus Enda... bias, moi?).


Tá súil agam go mbeidh seans acú labhairt faoina bpolasaí, agus nach mbeidh diaspóiracht again cosúil leis an gceann a bhí ar RTÉ... twitter debate, abair cibé rud is féidir i 45 soicind. Nach fíor gur na polatóirí fein a shocraigh go mbeadh 45 soicind an duine acú.. ná h'abair go bhfuil faitíos orthú go mbeadh an pobal ag iarradh a bpolasaí a scruidiú??!

Cé chomh íoranta (Béarlachas, I know!) atá sé go bhfuil Enda agus Fine Gael ag iarraidh breathnú ar an Ghaeilge mar teanga gan feidhm, is go raibh síod ag iarriadh í a bhaint den leaving cert, agus Enda le Gaeilge den scoth aige. Ta súil agam, i ndiadh an clár stairiúla seo, nach mbeidh siad ag iarriadh.

So, na deanagaí dearmad, VÓTA 2011, ar TG4 ag a 7 a chlog (Beidh mise ag breathnú ar 'Garraí Glas' ina dhiaidh).