Screen Printing Workshop

Today was our Screen Printing Workshop. It was a long day - a six-hour workshop on my feet the whole time. But it was really satisfying.

Turned out I was able to get my Skull printed on acetate at the print shop. Mike, the tech there, used Photoshop to manipulate and separate the design for me so I could do a two-part print! Also, the materials were included in the introductory workshop so we didn't need to pay for any of them. If we book in for our own projects, we'll have to pay for what we need/use.

We did every step. From applying the emulsion to the screens, drying it, then laying on the light table to expose the screen with our acetate images to UV light, then hosing off the loose emulsion from under the black image... all the way to cleaning the film off the screen entirely so they were clean for the next use.

It is a physical process, plus standing on my feet for six hours. I'm pretty tired. I didn't take a lunch break as I wanted to keep working (and I don't take my mask off anyway so no eating or drinking.)

The orientation of the skull flipped from left to right - not sure if that was a conscious decision or not. The original skull looks to left.

This is my original piece. I used a work-in-progress photo as my template, from before I added any colour to it.

I showed Jo my Plan B acetate that I did with black acrylic paint - she asked if I wanted to do it as well, so I said sure! So I did two completely different sets of prints.

I was trying for a streaky yellow/red rose - they look like they are splashed with paint. A couple turned out very close to the look I was going for.

This is the original watercolour sketch I used for this print.

So now I have five 32x45 cm prints of the skull, and 13 of the rose on A4 (21x32 cm). That was after I "rejected" one skull and a stack of roses for being "off" in some way! So,,, what do you do with them? I'm thinking Christmas presents - signed and numbered!