My screenprinting course has been marvellous. Week two: we splished and splashed, painted and squeegeed. We rolled, textured, printed and blocked. We got covered in blue paint and our nails were detailed in an assortment of whites, blues and greens. (Ahem, the messy bit is more of a me than a we, but let's not get bogged down in the details, okay?)

My giraffe was a great success. It seems that I have a knack for making my screen-printed transfers textured which is rather nice for a giraffe (I'm still not convinced this texture business is a good thing, but our lovely instructor assures me it is, and I plod along happily).

This week's homework: a complex or intricate design to be used with light-sensitive photo emulsion. Oh My.

I've been screenprinting at the Ideas Store. It's so much fun. I've attended the first of a ten-week course focusing on screenprinting techniques and tricks for fabric prints. Fabulous.

I had imagined that I would photograph the entire process, but wouldn'tyaknowit, I ended up covered in paint. My camera was stowed away safely in my bag. And so, all you have to go by is a few photographs of the studio, and some fabric paint. You'll have to trust me on the awesomeness.

Oh yes, we're screenprinting on fabric. We're washing and squeegie-ing, we're printing and pressing, we're cutting, folding and sketching. I mixed the greens on the left, and the very talented Julie from Kip & Fig mixed up the gold and blue. We borrowed the bronze, as you do. I had intended to stick to earthy and natural colours, but somehow the golds and bronzes and olive greens all got mixed up on the plate - and, well, that was the end of that.

In our first class, we learnt how to tape up a screen, how to apply paint, and how to paint free-form straight on to the mesh. We swirled and swished. I may have finger-painted just a little. This week, we're testing out a few image transfer techniques. 

This is Geoffrey. He's going to be a stencil for our next screenprinting project. He's homework. I've drawn him from the real Geoffrey who lives in our lounge, and watches over our books for us.

He came all the way from South Africa! It's rather far for a giraffe to travel these days. 

So, we headed off to Atlantis Art Materials in Shoreditch. It's a warehouse filled from top to bottom with art stuff. It's like an Aladdin's Cave of papers, paintbrushes, pastels and paints. It's a mecca of notebooks, sketchbooks and paper pads. I was looking for watercolour paper, and I chose a little book of recycled Khadi Papers. 

I was very controlled in Aladdin's Cave. I left with two pads of paper, a set of new watercolour brushes, some textured acrylic medium, and a lino cutter.

The texture on this paper is amazing. Each piece is a roughly the same shape and has a lovely uncut-edge to each side. The paper itself is thick but flexible, and is full of deep texture that reminds me more of linen or canvas - likely because the paper is made from recycled rags.

I've had an idea in mind for a while: I want to do lots of lovely little doodle watercolours as botanical or natural history illustrations mixed with text and an exploration of colour and texture. Then, I want to put them together and print these onto tags and fabric and all things tactile.

But where to start? So, I penciled and coloured a Fly Agaric mushroom, the eponymous mushroom which lends itself to all literature and illustrations. I was very tempted to ink on giant white spots on top of the mushroom, but they're not spots at all: they're warts. Warts!

This is as far as I got last night. This photo really doesn't do the pigment colours any justice: they're incredibly vivid, and they paint beautifully on this Khadi Papers pad. (Thank you, Winsor & Newton watercolours.)

Next step: try to loosen up a bit. Add some text. Highlight the warts (!). Paint more.