Friday, July 15, 2016

My First Experience Screenprinting

Marisha, my mentor, has been prepping me for screenprinting and the process of it all in the last week or so. I had to finally order two screens (one for fabric printing and the other for printing on paper), learn the process of cleaning and placing emulsion on my screens, and burning the positive images to my screen. It all sounded a little complicated and time consuming to me at first, but the process can be a little therapeutic and I love when I can actually be hands-on every once in a while.

Before, while creating the images, I learned that the simpler the layers, the simpler the workload. Which sounds easy, but for someone who loves color and is used to working through multiple layers on Photoshop, this was a little harder for me. So I decided my first screenprint will be something easy, so that I could get a hang of the process. Initially, I thought, maybe a two-layer print will be simple...but not exactly for someone who overthinks things way too much, like myself. So I decided on a three-layer print of some cute little cacti and succulents. After the image was created, and we finally prepped my screens, we went on to printing! Marisha had a makeshift printing area prepared in her basement, which also helped me to understand how to print without the use of a studio. The steps were pretty simple and very fun to do!



8 comments:

  1. This was a really interesting post to read! I've never been exposed to the process of screen printing, so it's nice to hear all that goes into it. How long did the whole process take?

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    2. Thanks! The preparing of the screens and getting the images burned to them ,took about an hour and thirty minutes including drying time and everything. The printing process took about 30 to 45 minutes because I made about 15 prints with 3 layers.

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  2. I really love these prints! As someone who also is in love with applying and creating art with tons of different colors, I can totally relate with the internal struggle of simplicity vs. color haha. Now after your experience screen printing, would you consider using the process in more of your illustrative work/ post-grad career?

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    1. Thanks! I definitely think I will use this process in my future work. It is very tedious but fun to do!

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    2. Thanks! I definitely think I will use this process in my future work. It is very tedious but fun to do!

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  3. These look so great especially for a first screen print! I love the outcome of the process but had so much trouble doing it myself, found it very hard to be so clean and precise lol

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    1. Thanks Anna! Yeah I felt the same in my first runs, but after a while it became a little easier lol

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