When learning to screen print I went through a phase of being obsessed with printing CMYK halftones. These consist of breaking an image into four distinct layers of colour – cyan, magenta, yellow and black (aka key) and then turning them into individual layers formed of dot patterns. These four layers are then printed on top of each other to form an image. There is a beautiful image of the Queen taken by Cecil Beaton that I printed up, purely because I thought it would be a lovely image to work with.
I wanted to take this further so I separated the image into two separate CMYK halftones – one for the portrait of the Queen and another for the background. I then printed these up in different configurations – some with all four layers, some with fewer. I also experimented with using neon inks for these
My final offering came out of a workshop I attended about disrupting images. I took one of my original prints of Cecil Beaton’s famous image and added a crude lino print over the top.
I will never forget the day of the Queen’s funeral, I was staying at the women’s crisis house and the staff brought cakes and scones and made fresh coffee for all the residents. We gathered in the communal lounge and quietly sat in front of the TV. I dozed off, sleeping under an NHS blanket that someone else had left there, quietly snoring away. When I woke up the church service at Westminster Abbey was over and she was on the move to somewhere else. It was boring to be honest but I stayed curled up on the sofa, sort of emotionally invested but equally not.
Many of my friends knew that I loved the queen, sometimes ironically, sometimes genuinely. I liked how she seemed quite brusque, how her use of language was quite pithy but equally was pretty committed to the job that had been foisted upon her. I liked how she patiently went to watch supermarkets being opened, politely met with unbearable people, how she once won a £50 Tesco voucher at the Great Windsor Horse Show and how she had banned Monopoly at Sandringham.
I also liked how her parting shot was a pop her clogs after meeting Liz Truss. A final fuck this moment. As I laid on the sofa that day though, I realised that I actually think the monarchy is ridiculous, it’s magic spell over me had suddenly broken. Later I found a t-shirt with a lyric by a band from Durham called Martha – drain the blood from every diamond on this damp and hateful island. Pretty much sums up the situation really.
Jessica Scott 