I am a screen printer, working out of my Studio in Bedford where I am also mum to two children and various pets. I screen print Art Prints and Greetings Cards, I love bright colours and my prints more often than not feature animals, I am partial to a Dachshund and most recent piece is a large Pink Gorilla.
Describe your printmaking process.
I screen print so the process is a long one. Normally I start with pencil and pen illustrated sketchers, which get scanned into photoshop to be made into layers which are printed onto acetate, these get developed using UV lights onto my screens and each colour printed onto paper is a separate screen, it’s quite a process.
How and where did you learn to print?
I did a Fine Art Painting degree, mainly using oils (still painting Drag Queens and Dachshunds even then) but I touched on Screen Printing and loved it. fast forward 15 years, a career in London & 2 children and wanting to get back to a creative job that I could do whilst being able to pick my kids up from school and I just knew Screen Printing was the route I wanted to take.
Why printmaking?
I love the bold blocks of colour and building the image up in layers to produce an image.
Where do you work?
I am very lucky, I have a studio at my home in Bedford, we converted a patch of our garden, it’s my happy place.
Describe a typical day in your studio.
Well prior to lockdown, I would get my kids to school, walk the dogs and then spend the day either Printing at my Flat bed printer or Sketching and Developing new ideas for prints before School pick up at 3:30pm. Then I might get back in the studio at 8pm to work on admin like website and packing orders. Life has changed a lot since then, now with 2 children to home school I’m not finding I am getting as much time as I would like to print, we are muddling through the best we can.
How long have you been printmaking?
About 3 years
What inspires you?
Colour, I love bright colours and Clashing patterns, also animals, in particular, my Dapple Dachshund Minnie Moomin.
What is your favourite printmaking product?
NEON PINK INK every time!
What have you made that you are most proud of?
My recent print of a Pink Gorilla I am proud of, it took a lot of drafts and changes to get it exactly as I wanted it. I made a few by printing a base layer of Adhesive and using Pink Metal Leaf sheets as my base layer and then printing on top, it was my first time using metal leaf and I had a lot of goes before I was happy, but I rather love the camp pink beast I ended up with.
Where can we see your work? Where do you sell?
I mainly sell via my Instagram page @hannah_carvell this is where I post all my new work and progress shots I also have my own website www.hannahcarvell.com and a few Retail stockists dotted around the country.
What will we be seeing from you next?
I always have a few ideas on the go, I have a lot of requests for more large Abstract hearts, which I do really enjoy printing. I would also like to do more monkeys and a series of Staffordshire China Dogs, I sketched loads of these so long ago I would love to turn them into prints.
Do you have any advice for other printmakers and creatives?
If I still lived in London I would have joined one of the open studios to print, the facilities are all there as well as other people on hand to help you out in those early stages. I have been to Print Club London and Consoles Print Studio, both offer workshops to get you started. If that’s not a possibility then I managed to source most of my equipment 2nd hand on eBay and Gumtree, I got my Flat Bed printer from a School that was selling off old equipment on eBay.
For more from Hannah, follow her on Instagram!