Omagh Girl Photography

Print making at the Alzheimer's memories cafe

I attend the cafes with my mother and today's activity after our coffee and biscuits was printmaking as the facilitator who had been booked cancelled and at the last minute an artist's collective from Bangor(County Down) stepped in.

Actually it wasn't the first time I had come across this particular printmaking technique as I had done a day long workshop last year whilst I was studying for a Btec Level 3 in photography. I was inspired by Andy Warhol's shoes (1)square book where the same shoe is depicted in different colours – I didn't want to do something too similar to his very well-known Marilyn Monroe(2) images. So I took some photos of a plain white stiletto shoe and traced its outline on a sheet of plexiglass with a sharp scribe, rubbed ink on to it, put a sheet of paper on top and put it through a press – a gadget a lot like a mangle. That is what I did last year. Yesterday it was very similar although we only had time for one colour – black. I traced the outline of a rose and added shading – here it is below – a Dutch student artist offered to take my print of my hands if I didn't like it – very amusing.