Screen Printing Mirrors

My final major project is going to be made up of 3 canvasses 2 portraits and a central piece that will be a gilded mirror carrying a message, much like the magic mirror from the Snow White fairy tale, it will be this central piece that will tie the flanking portraits together.
Drawing a mirror, how hard could that possibly be? Turns out it was much harder than I had imagined.
I had an image of how I wanted the mirror to look,
I wanted a Georgian style ornate frame, and detailed, very detailed.
Once I had found an example i could work from I had to break it down into layers that would form a finished screen print to then lay over my painted canvas.

The Image above is of two of the three layers I drew on acetate to use to play with some colour schemes for the finished screen print.

So I took it to the print room not only to practise with the images and colour tests but to make sure the image worked as a screen print before I enlarged it to the full A1 size of the final piece.

During the tests, one thing became apparent, that using black ink was not an option, It gave the illusion of an outline, I wanted the image to flow but look natural, and thats not something you can do using outlines.

I learned other valuable lessons too, for instance making sure my printing medium was the correct viscosity, if it is too thin then it will bleed and detract from the detail of the drawing.

The first colour scheme was my preferred choice, but for the final piece I will be substituting the main Yellow layer for the golden medium ink That I used on the black background.