I prepared art work before I went down to Rossington street. I found that preparing your work in illustrator and take advantage of layers was the easiest way for me. I had seen a print that I really liked online and wanted to purchase, however I did not have the money for it yet, and so until I could afford to purchase the print, I thought that I could create my own version.
Original print:
At first I tried to image trace the print, as I was only using the design for experimenting/ testing purposes, however It was quite unsuccessful and so I had to draw in her body and the cat.
Below is an image of the 1st layer I created from the print.
This layer would act as the 2nd layer from screen printing as it is the outline, which I wanted to print in black. I then made a second layer, which acted as a base layer, filling in some of the sections above. I want to have this layer as a grey layer, however for printing and exposing purposes this has to be printed as a black positive.
As I had created my print on illustrator, printing it out for screen print was simple and easy. the first thing I did was make sure that both my layers were completely black. I then simply hid the second layer and printed the first and vise versa.
I printed the image out onto plain white paper, it can be more successful using acetate, however if your ink is off a good quality, and the print doesn't come out in a deep grey tone or anything not totally black than your screen print will be just as successful.
Once I had my print outs ready, I went to prepare my screen. I chose a screen that was big enough to fit both of my print outs on without having any over laps. It is important to pick the right size screen as different screen sizes have different costs. Picking a screen that is a lot bigger than your artwork will only result in you incurring a larger screen, when you will not need it.
I then took my screen to the cleaning both, washing both sides of the screen with an anti grease solution and then blasting it with a hose. This helps to remove the image that the previous student had on the screen. Then comes the time to re-apply the emulsion, which I did by taking a 'trough' filling it with emulsion and sliding it upwards to create a thin layer on top of the screen.
I then put my screen into the light box, with my print outs placed on top, side by side. Amount of time spent in the light box exposing depends on the size of your screen and strength of the light.
Once my screen went through the exposure process, I took it back to the cleaning booth, here I washed both sides with a sponge and water, removing the emulsion that had no hardened properly where my design was. You will notice that as you clean the screen, your design will become sharper and stronger, this is because the emulsion you applied is being washed away. This will allow the ink to pass through these sections easily allowing the print to happen.
Once the screen was dry (approx 30 minutes later) It was ready for me to use.
I took my screen over to the printing beds, and taped up the edges where the emulsion had not met the frame to ensure no ink would escape through, I also taped up part of the screen where my outline design was to avoid accidentally printing this onto my stock as well.
Once I had finished parcel taping the screen, I secured it within the bed, face down, bringing the two side bars together, and securing them into place by pressing the levers town, and turning the 4 knobs until my screen was secure.
Once doing this I was ready to register my screen. Picking the colour I wanted (grey) I scooped it onto the top of the screen, spreading it across so that when printed it would cover the whole design. I then put the true grain in place over the bed and switched the bed on.
Taking a squeegee, i pulled the screen down so it was parallel with the bed, and spread the ink, from top to bottom coating the whole design. I then lifted up the screen and spread the ink back to the top.
Now my print was on the true grain. I slid my paper under the true grain and lined it up with the print, I then applied tape to the bed around the corners of my paper so that I knew exactly where to place each new piece of stock. Once I did this I was ready to print.
I took my stock and placed it within the register marks, and repeated the process as before, pushing my screen down, using the squeegee to spread the ink across my design and lifting the screen back up. I did this a number of times until I had a set of around 12 prints.
I then moved on to printing the second layer also known as 'the outline'. I took my screen to the cleaning booth and washed all the grey ink off with water and a sponge. I then repeated the same process as before, Taping around the edge of the screen and around the correct layer, then securing it into the bed.
I then took the black ink and spread it across the top of the screen. Using the register marks I had made I knew exactly where to place my stock so that it would like up accurately, using the same technique as previous, I printed the outline across all of the prints.
After doing this I had a full set of two colour prints.
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