Silkscreening

I thought I'd show some of the stuff I've been working on lately. For those who dont know, my senior project is building a small business doing silkscreen t-shirts. So to learn the silkscreen aspect I've been going to a class in the city at SVA. This work is my 3rd piece ever working with silkscreening. And I put over 12 hours into making 19 pieces of art. I will try to explain the process through these pictures:


I am taping my screen here so that the water doesn't get in and warp the board.


The board is fully taped.


The exposure takes place.

This part is a little more complicated to explain. Before, in a dark room, put a coating called emulsion on the flat side of my screen. Emulsion is a light sensitive substance. Once the emulsion is dry you put it in the exposing maching directly on top of your piece of art. You piece of art must be on a paper that lets light through where there is no drawing but prevents the light from coming through where there is. Where the light comes through (ie in the open areas around your drawing) the emulsion is developed, no paint can get through. Where the light did not penetrate (ie your drawing) the emulsion is still wet and can be washed away so that your screen is still open in those areas.


You can see my original art here. On the screen, the darker yellow is the exposed emulsion. And the light yellow is the unexposed emulsion, it is where the paint will go through the screen.


Similar image as above.

Now for the Printing:


The first screen


The process is not as complicated as setting up the screen, but it is very time consuming. Each screen you make is only for one part of your drawing/art. So you can use many different colors but to put my whole piece together I had to make 4 different screen. going through the same process each time. And then on top of that to change the color in any single screen required a full wash, dry, and realignment, as well as mixing the paint and cutting the paper. But here are the results:




The first screen.

After 4 screens.