Before I started screen printing, about a year ago, I had been wanting to get into this field for many years. Because I live on a island in the N-Atlantic Ocean, with just over 300.000 inhabitants, there aren’t that many screen printers and very few if any teaching it. I found one and he lived in the opposite part of the island 13 hour drive away. Thinking screen printing was complicated and hard I continuously postpond jumping into it – so for many years I had unfulfilled screen printing desire.

Last year Dagbjört and I decided to start a small family business together. After a great deal of thinking we decided it would be fun to design and silks screen t-shirts – inspired by nature with an eco-friendly touch.

Instead of finding a local teacher I found Ryonet’s YouTube channel through Google. They have good video tutorials on probably every aspect of silk screening. I ordered equipment from them and with it I got DVD’s with step-by-step tutorials on screen printing. Through trial and error over the last year I have gotten better at this craft. And each time I go silk screening I add to my knowledge – always discovering something new.

Screen printing isn’t complicated or hard – it takes time and patience though – but it is rewarding and fun.

We got our new t-shirt shaped tags, that double as business cards, from the printers last week. We have been busy punching holes and tying strings last few nights and are happy with the results.

I have been working as a graphic designer for over a decade. During my years studying, the computers had recently taken over the graphic design industry. There for I have been sitting in front of the display most working days since then.

In the recent years I’ve felt an increasing urge to use my hands and fingers in the creation – without the mouse serving as a poor messenger from my hands to the screen. There is an important brain – hand connection that is lost in the digital environment. That’s why I started using pencils and paper few years back. I love the smell of the pencils, paper and eraser – I especially love how liberating it is.
This is the same reason why I enjoy, no sorry, I love silk screening so much. The smell of the colors, the feel of the wood and tight screens, eyeballing the color mix, pulling the colors through the screens with my hands, seeing the design come to live before my eyes. Using all those different muscles – not only my butt and fingers, and sometimes even breaking a sweat.

And that is why I love silk screening.

The idea for Organella was born few months into the financial crisis in Iceland – in late 2008. We knew we wanted to open a website of some sorts and after going through few ideas in the year 2009 we decided to use my long time unfulfilled interest in silkscreening. We combined it with my skills in drawing and design, threw in a dash of nature and finished it with a eco-friendly touch.

The result was Organella – a small silkscreening business with original t-shirt prints inspired by nature – in the broadest sense of the word – with the aim of raising awareness for the environment. We print only on 100% certified organic clothes and only use water based eco-friendly colors and solvent free chemicals.

The first T-shirts were ready in December 2010. In June 2011 we released 7 new T-shirts and are planning to release two more this summer and a new line next winter.

Our T-shirts are available at our E-shop and few shops and museums in Iceland.