I’ve been wanting to do these screen prints for ages. They were a struggle. I drew the positives on tracing paper with indian ink and it was a bit of a dark art calculating the expose time. But I got there in the end. There are three in total.
All sailors, all to do with the mystery of the ocean. There is obviously a very heavy japanese print influence going on, but they are also very much influenced by naval tattoos. This fist one for instance has images of swallows which have a symbolic meaning when represented as a tattoo. Back in the days before modern navigation birds would obviously represent land and tattoos of swallows, sparrows and blue birds came to represent a safe passage home. Swallows, maybe because of their migratory habits came to represent successfully sailing a certain amount of miles. There is another story that says that if sailor gets a set of swallows on his chest, if he or she drowns the swallows will come down and lift his soul up to heaven.
This print titled, Sailor with Swallows is black and white printed on japanese Atsukuchi paper, which is only 57gsm, but don’t be fooled although this paper is thin it is very strong with a waxy finish which makes the ink stand up on it.
There are only 15 of these.
They are all available in the here