Pink Floyd Drum Skins

Back in 2014, at Jealous print studio, I was approached by the much missed designer Katy Hepburn with a most interesting plan.

In the early seventies, Katy worked with Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason who was well known for his amazingly painted drum kits.

Floyd had been touring Japan and Nick asked Katy to paint his entire kit with a Hokusai inspired Great Wave design.

Fast forward to 2014 and amid a storage move, Nick rediscovered Katy’s kit along with several more painted in the sixties by other artists. He had the idea to reproduce a number of the bass drum skins so they could be sold to raise funds for the charities he supports.

He asked Katy and Katy asked me and the project began.

Screen printing onto a circle which is pretty bouncy - not at all rigid - presented a difficulty or two. And most of the designs involved a large number of layers of colour which needed to fit together in tight register

A great deal of testing and proofing followed with the textured Remo drum skin surface proving surprisingly forgiving for screen print.

I produced small editions of 8 different designs in the end. They have been selling for charity steadily over the last 10 years and Katy’s original Great Wave kit, along with my screen printed versions, featured in the 2017 Pink Floyd exhibition at the London V&A, “Their Mortal Remains”