Screen Printing is the Way... OR IS IT?????

Ahh I thought that all trials and tribulations were over after I had screen printed the blue butterfly (previous entry). Surely this was the way. I was taken aback by the bold colour and sharp edges giving the image a much more 3D quality than digital printing. I found my thoughts confirmed when I digitally printed the first butterfly below. The image is subdued and hazy compared to it's screen printed counterpart.

Blue Butterfly Digitally Printed





Blue Butterfly (with different colour scheme) Digitally Printed


AND THEN....
Hmmm, a fly in the ointment. I find that my detailed ink and watercolour drawings work well with the subdued and hazy qualities of digital printing. I also acknowledge that this is where I can, perhaps, excel as my illustrations are pretty good (quite detailed and fairly skilled). I was aware of the feeling that "anyone can do this" when I was making the screen printed butterfly. My thoughts were confirmed when I had a tutorial with Simon. He showed no emotion over the screen printed images but thought that butterfly and milkweed pods were quite good and worth exploring. He also noted that the colour scheme below was sophisticated versus the crassness of the screen printing. I also showed my work to another couple of fine art graduate students, once again no emotion over screen printed butterflies but illustrations below evoked a more positive response.

Ink and Watercolour Butterfly Digitally Printed


Ink and Watercolour Milkweed Pods



So, I am going to experiment over next couple weeks with potential sophistication of screen printing whilst also looking at digitally printing some more complex ink and watercolor images (as well as attend university, prepare blog, write critical review, beef up sketch book, make poster, manifesto, prepare exhibition, go to January Frankfurt interiors show, have fabulous and magical Christmas with 5 year old...... sleep is overrated..OR IS IT?).