How I made the Woolly Sheep Mini Screen

I got my digital screen maker for my Ready to Print Mini Screens earlier in the year, but it hasn’t been until Covid made me suspend all printmaking classes that I’ve really started to play with it.

Most of the designs for the Mini Screens begin with a hand drawn sketch. Once I’m happy with the image, I use black ink to create a strong black and white image that is scanned into the computer.

The sheep required a different approach altogether as the original designs didn’t look woolly enough. Anne decided that the only way to make it look more sheep-like was to knit it. I’ll let her explain…

“Earlier this year, I’d been exploring the theme of “Stitch” and had knitted lots of samples for blind embossing, jelly prints and collagraph prints. It was all very experimental and more about having fun than working towards a project, but I realised that my knitting swatches might be the answer to our quest for a woolly sheep.
I tried different sized knitting needles with wire, string, plastic bags and a variety of more normal yarns as well as trying to knit something that looked vaguely like a sheep. Eventually I settled on large 9mm knitting needles with linen yarn to make a very loose piece of knitting that was stuck onto mountboard to make a collagraph plate that I printed using the relief method.”

Once Anne had made her print, I could then scan it into the computer to tidy up a couple of lines and make it ready to be turned into a screen. I fixed the mesh to a frame and passed it through the digital screen maker. The screen is finished with tape to keep ink and water out and then it’s ready to print.

The Woolly Sheep is part of the Farmyard Collection. Take a look at the full collection and some project ideas.