The very first step is to prepare your screen. Tape the frame with waterproof tape all around. Screen gets washed out with powerwasher many times so having the tape on frame protects the screen from damage. Wash/rinse the screen with Mesh Prep to clean and this is important because you want to make sure you don't have any chemical left on the mesh from the manufacture. Once the screen is dry, you take it to the darkroom to coat the screen with photo emulsion. This stuff gets everywhere and really toxic so I wear a pair of gloves to protect my hands. I used to make so much mess when I did it the first time but I got used to it now. If I don't see any drizzle on the table where I coated the screen I feel so accomplished when I leave the darkroom. So you go wash the nasty emulsion off of emulsion coater and wait until the emulsion is dry on your screen for about an hour.
But I don't sit around. I never have the time to sit around when I'm in the lab. There are a lot to do while the screen is taking a short nap in the smelly darkroom. I usually prepare my separations, paper or mix inks. Paper needs to be torn to the size you want. *Cutting with scissors, knife or any sharp objects is prohibited in the lab. Having the natural edge on 4 sides is a part of tradition. Paper prep is really important but I'm going to skip it and talk about making separations.
Silkscreen is known for its graphic look, and you can basically only print one color at a time. You need a bottle of india ink or pen that is opaque. Sharpie is not opaque but it makes such a nice texture and I love it. China marker and lithography crayons work well for making texture, too. Once you have the mastercopy which is a final drawing for your piece and the color study done, you are ready to make separations. Make registration marks on each corner of the mastercopy. You use the same mastercopy for making every single separation so having registration marks is definitely important.
Above is my separation for keyline from Sugar-Aid I made in Summer. For the most part, I used graphic art marker which is made in Italy and you can only find them on DickBlick.com. I only need black for silkscreen but it comes in a pack of beautiful 18 colors. Only 20 bucks for a pack. I think it's pretty reasonable for what they offer. I tried a bunch of other markers but this is the only marker that does the right job. It doesn't even smear on acetate!! The one that's showing in the photo is Pitt pen from Faber-Castell. I am a huge fan of this pen when I draw on shoes but not so much for acetate because it smears so easily.Here's another one from the current piece I'm working on.
I used sharpie on the bottom and for the top, I used Black Cat ink on a huge roll of matte acetate. I like Sumi ink but it's kind of sticky and it takes longer to dry. When the ink is dry and your screen is dry in the darkroom, you take them to the machine called exposure unit to burn the screen (not literally, but with lights). The way it works is simple but kind of hard to explain. Photo emulsion becomes water-resistant when it's exposed to the light, so this is why we have to coat the screen in the darkroom otherwise, you wouldn't be able to get your stencil right. When you put the separation and the coated screen in the machine and hit "start", the machine turns on extremely harsh UV light to the screen. When the light hits the screen, anything that you drew in opaque black stays water-soluble and the rest of the area becomes water-resistant. After the screen is exposed, you take it to the sink area to wash out the screen so that the part where it hasn't been exposed with light (which is the separation) gets washed out. You put the screen on the drying rack and continue working on mixing inks and making more separations for next color.Let's talk about monotype which I use quite often. There are a lot of ways you can approach to have painterly look and monotype is one of the techniques you can use. You burn a screen with the size of the background of your piece and grab some big paint brush (3 - 4 inches wide) and just spread the ink however you like. You can make spatters or make some line drawing with water-soluble crayons and run it (= place a squeezee big enough to cover the whole stencil/image area and pull.) This image below is done in monotype plus some transparent yellow over it.
Sorry for the shitty photo quality. It was shittier when I put it on the computer and had to make some adjustments to get the closer look to the original.The thing that most people seem to get tired of doing is washing your screen each time you finish a run (print one color). You have to be quick because the ink dries fast and if it stays on the mesh, it is a bitch to clean. After you washed ink away, you remove stencil. Spray stencil remover back and front of your screen, then brush until the stencil starts to melt. Then, here comes my favorite part, powerwasher. It is so powerful and loud that I feel like any frustrations or stress just gets blown away by it after I use it. It is priceless.
After washing the screen, put it on the drying rack and make next stencil....
There are more details to cover, like mixing ink, flashing and etc if you are really going to print, but this is the overall process of how to silkscreen in the lab at school. So now you know why I never answer my phone calls. (I always call back if it's urgent and if I get a message!) It requires a lot of patience and back & arm muscle.
My back hurt so bad earlier and I decided not to go print today..I have a whole day to print tomorrow so I'm not tripping.
Weekly music festival in the office. (Saturdays only): From Monument To Masses, Cursed, Converge, Refused, Between The Buried And Me, Torche, Eliott, Giants, Isis, Meet Me In St. Louis, Read Yellow
