Serigraph - Aboriginal Dancer

by Bill Bradley
(NT, Australia)

Hi Julie, I love the site. I have been drawing on and off for a long time, but a few years ago I got the urge to try something different. I wanted to add a bit of colour to my sketches.

The result was that I had nearly a year off from my day job, did a few courses at uni on printmaking and started making "Serigraphs".

Serigraph is the arty way of saying a screen-printed print on paper, for display usually in a frame. The difference is that instead of using a lot of hi-tech gear, we use home made equipment and prepare and print each page by hand.

It is a huge amount of fun.

Screen printing leads itself to strong graphical images, with at the same time lots of room for individual styles.

The image above is of a young aboriginal lad at the Merrepen arts festival in the top end of Australia where I live.

This young guy was waiting in the wings for his turn on the stage but he hated it! He didn't want to do the boring traditional stuff while all his mates were running wild on the footy field.

I took a photo of him and used it to make a sketches and then the print. From memory it took about six different colours, with each colour needing a separate screen. About 30 or so copies were made.

I have a few of my drawings on my drawing for pleasure page.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers
Bill