Saturday 14th May 2011 –  The Late Shows: Northern Print

This year was the 5th anniversary of The Late Shows and I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer in both the run up to and the event itself. I spent a busy few days in the office in week leading up to The Late Shows helping pack up boxes full of glow sticks, t-shirts and maps to each venue, which when I got to my designated volunteer venue – Northern Print, Ouseburn – I then had to unpack.

Inside Northern Print

Northern Print had a bird theme exhibition running throughout the galleries two floors and the activities visitors could participate in were also bird themed. In the main gallery cardboard swallows and parrots decorated with printed ink feathers were strung up from the ceiling and downstairs guests could screen print onto material to make a handkerchief.

Hanging printed parrots and swallows

I had a sneaky go before people started arriving, first I picked out a yellow card parrot and three feathers.

Rolling out the ink

I then placed each of my feathers on a different patch of ink, rolled the roller over them, then I laid them on top of my parrot and under a sheet of tissue paper, and used the press to print my ink soaked feathers onto my parrot.

Wheeling my parrot through the press

Bellow you can see my parrot, I then hung him in the gallery among the birds already printed from friday night.

My parrot!!!

There were loads of birds hanging up by the end of the evening, I think most of the people who came to Northern Print made one and they all looked lovely hanging from the ceiling or nesting on specially build perches when we ran out of clips to suspend them from.

More birds

As well as feather printing, there were also displays of screen printing and block print printing.

Screen printing demonstrations

Wood block print

Over the course of the two Late Shows evenings Northern Print had more than 1,000 visitors.