A few things happened during lockdown... I hid in a room and made collages, I drove us all mad trying to help our son in his school work, I doodled.
Then my friend Jenny lent me some nice A2 screens, and Jamie found an old wooden A3 screen printing screen, so I took this as a sign and took up the squeegee.
For help and inspiration I looked at these books below ...
I also stared at Japanese matchboxes labels on Pinterest...
Lesson 1 ... A simple 3 colour print using paper cut stencils. I bought Speedball water based inks online from Hunt The Moon and a roll of Freezer paper to cut my stencils from.
I know there are many mistakes here with my methods! But hey... I still got a dodgy print from it.
I booked the family onto a workshop with Ben Dodge ~ Kendal based screen printer, to get some insight into the process.
For the workshop I needed to come up with a 2 colour print idea. (pic 1)
For the next homemade screen print I had to get my head around the layers thing. (pic2 & 3)
Lesson 2 ... Using plain paper for a stencil does NOT work!.
To make the ink tanslucent, I need Silk Screen Medium.
Working out colours and layers is hard!
Lesson 3 ... Sometimes less is more. This was a 4 layer print but I like it with just 2 layers best! (pic1)
Lesson 4 ... For a more detailed image, sticky backed vinyl can be used for the cut out stencil.
If you're struggling for ideas.. just play.
Writing 'Wednesday' is a little pleasure.
More layers can be added (using tracing paper and a printer) without prior planning!
Meanwhile ... More digital ideas for the upcoming screen printing workshop...
Lesson 5 ... The workshop with Ben Dodge Ltd. It was a brilliant day in a beautiful, well equipped studio with a great teacher!
pic1 ~ Coating the screens with emulsion.
pic2 ~ Acetate are printed for our 3 prints.
pic3 ~ Images exposed onto the screens.
Printing our prints!
Very pleased with the results!