New Broons screenprints. I’ve printed several new editions to celebrate the forthcoming 80th anniversary of The Broons.
These are a screenprint of the very first strip, which appeared back in March 1936, in The Post, Dundee.
And portraits of all eleven Broonses, in pairs (the twins and Horace make a trio), from images drawn by the original draughtsman Dudley D Watkins, who continued to draw the strip until the late 1960s.
Above is the one of Maw and Paw Broon.
As ever, the screenprints are pulled by me and my team in my studio in Maida Vale, west London (across the road from the BBC’s Maida Vale studio). They are all issued in limited editions of 200 and printed on cotton mould made paper milled in Somerset.
The first strips have been produced in my medium format – 48cms x 38cms and cost £145 unframed or £195 framed.
The portraits have been produced in my standard format – 26cms x 19cms and cost £40 unframed or £70 framed.
The Broons are an 11-strong family. The members are Paw, Maw, Granpaw, Hen, Daphne, Joe, Maggie, Horace, The Twins, The Bairn. They are still appearing every week in The Sunday Post.
I especially enjoy using Watkins’s panels in my screenprints as they were drawn so well – he took great pains to give each panel a well balanced composition. And with just a few lines he was able to give a huge range of expressions to his characters.
The Broons and Oor Wullie – the other Sunday Post strip drawn by Watkins – have become hugely popular across Scotland – and often seem to regarded as part of Scots’ extended families.
I love the stories for their invention and the language that the characters use – it’s full of Scottish turns of phrase which you don’t often see elsewhere.
The Broons and Oor Wullie are known to every Scot – wherever they may be. Many of my customers are Scots or the children or grandchildren of Scots who live outside Scotland.
I am the first and only screenprinter with permission to use the images of The Broons and Oor Wullie in my work.
John Patrick Reynolds
February 2016
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