I LOVE screen printing. I'd done it once before at some workshop thing at Drew Uni. but it was for maybe a few hours and I didn't quite get the full experience. Since I'm in a screen printing class now, I have been doing it for 5 weeks and love love LOVE it. Because it's a class in the fibers department our projects are more based in design/pattern rather than in fine art. The first project we had to make stencils using contact paper. The imagery had to be created using logos in our daily lives. I don't have any pictures of that right now but when I get the project back from the prof I'll post.
The first big project which is due next week was to create a repeat pattern that has a lot of texture; then print the pattern on 2 substrates of 3 yards each. We all had to make texture samplers. Basically we took different materials (India ink, rubber bands, masking tape, acrylic paint etc) that would block light and put them on acetate. We exposed our emulsion coated screens with the acetate underneath on a light table and wherever the light got blocked by the shapes, got washed out after and thus creating a stencil on the screen. I did one pattern with 4 colors. Then picked one of the motif layers from that pattern and made another pattern for the second 3yards.
The 4-color birds are printed on Kona Muslin, and the bird outlines are printed on Kona Cotton turquoise. I also printed a sample of the bird outlines on Magnani printing paper.
I have yet to take good pictures of the 4-color, I'll update this photo as soon as I take a better one.
process photo 1.
process photo 2.
finished!
Since I had so much fun printing the first set of birds, I made a whole new pattern of owls to print for myself on different fabrics and papers (project for Friday July 23). This was the test print on Magnani printing paper.
