VictoriaS

I come bearing pictures! Examples of tools and stencils. But I'm going to start with some of my prints drying. These have since been finished and have been turned in. The teacher said I either got an A or a really high B on them. I hope it's an A, I think they came out very well and clean. I only had one really bad print, all the rest are lined up perfectly and have very little to no haloing.

A halo by the way is when the print sticks to the screen a bit so the ink doesn't settle perfectly and you get a ring of a different texture. It looks like a halo, hence the name.

Just a note. There are a LOT more pictures beneath the cut. :) So please press read more if you are even vaguely interested.

Next we have some basic but important tools. 

This is a screen. It's a 200, which is why it's yellow. You can get wood frames too but they may warp over time. Mine is aluminum and isn't going to bend unless I horribly abuse it and actively try to bend it. The tape is there to keep ink from seeping into the edges. I got a compliment on how clean my taping job was from one of the TA's.

Normally the screen is more translucent. It looks very opaque in this picture because there's a paper stencil taped to the back of it. And here's the same screen from the other side to show the stencil better.

It's freezer paper. Shiny side to the screen. This is so that the ink can only go through the cut out portion and so it will be repelled by the slick side of the paper and not absorbed.

These are some of the print boards. Those clips at the top of all of them are the important part. It's what you clap the screen into to keep in in place. They also have hinges so you can tilt the screen up and down.

Next we have a scooper card and a brush. The scooper card so far has been one of my best friends in this class. It's used for scooping up excess ink from the screen and off the squeegee so you don't waste any. It's also used for spreading screen filler. The brush is generally used for drawing fluid and screen filler.

Since I just mentioned it. This is screen filler. It's red and goopy and needs to be stirred before every use. Stirred, not shaken. If you shake it then it gets bubbles and isn't nearly as useful. You paint it onto your screen and wherever you paint with it the ink will not go through. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the drawing fluid. But it looks almost exactly like the screen filler only it's a green blue color. Screen filler does just that, it fills the screen. You paint drawing fluid on where you want the ink to go through. Then you let it dry. Then you cover the whole thing with screen filler or a combination of screen filler and paper later to cover large spaces. Let the whole thing dry, wash out the drawing fluid, and you have a stencil ready to use.

This is my screen with a photo stencil on it and all the little pin holes filled in with screen filler. You can see where I used the scooper card on larger areas. Photo stencils are neat and all, but working all the pin holes out of them is a pain.

Here's that same scooper card from before in it's natural habitat. Covered in ink, it waits patiently for me to use it before the ink dries. Also that little thing wedged under the screen is a spacer. It's just a piece of paper with tape wrapped around it. It's used to keep space between the screen and the print board. Why do this? So that the screen doesn't stick to the print and so you get clean even coverage.

Now for something a little more interesting. I present, a pull. This is on that paper stencil from earlier in the post. That thing at the top is a squeegee. They come in a variety of densities and sizes. You hold it at an angle, press, and pull it towards you to force the ink through the screen and onto your paper below. Which I assume is why every time you do it is called a pull.

Here's a pull over a photo stencil. Notice that not as much ink is just sitting there. That's because with the paper stencil some ink gets pressed through that has to be cleaned off the paper side when you're done. The photo stencil though blocks on the screen itself so the ink has nowhere to go and less gets left behind.

This is how a photo stencil is made. Well... Sort of. You have to take a clear sheet with your image in black. A photo stencil doesn't need to be of a photo. You can draw directly onto a clear acetate or print on to one of these sheets. It then gets put on your screen (after it's been coated with the photo emulsion and dried) and exposed to light in a chamber. The light hardens the emulsion except for the bits that are hidden by the black on your image. You wash out the non hardened emulsion directly afterwards and viola, photo stencil.

Here's a progress picture of my print. As you can see it has little holes in it and is being held down with two metal pins. This is how you make sure all your prints are lined up properly.

This is a registration pin. They are a life saver. You lined up your print each time you have a new stencil/screen. But you only have to line it up once, because all the other prints have the same holes in the same place. So you line it up. Tape the pins to the board in the correct place and print away.

Tags: materials | screenprinting