Printmaking: Screen Printing

I had done screen printing before at college, but it was so great to have an induction at university because they have a lot more equipment to make the process easier and produce more accurate prints. The screens were even ready to coat and use yourself - at college I had to stretch the mesh over the frame myself!

Fist we coated our screens in light sensitive paint then we were given two layers of the same image on A4 paper since it was just an induction lesson. We placed these images in a huge ultraviolet light box and then the screen face down on top. We closed the lid and then a vacuum removes the air to keep everything in place during the exposure. The light exposes the paint in the light areas of the screen and this forms a stencil.

Using a jet wash we washed the screen to remove any paint in areas we don't need so our prints came out nice and crisp. When it the screen had dried from this step we masked off the edges with parcel tape and if there were any accidental holes in he paint then this can be covered with the tape too.

To mix ink you mix acrylic paint with acrylic printing medium. At uni we have a shelf of pre-mixed inks too so we just picked colours from here to save time.

We clamped our screens into the frames and created a registration print on masking tape so we could align the print into the centre of the paper and line up the two layers perfectly. To create the print you put a line of ink at the top and then use a squeegee at a 45 degree angle to pull the ink towards you over the stencil. 

When everything's finished and you're happy with your prints you use a cleaning solution and a jet wash to remove the emulsion and leave the screen to dry ready for the next person to use.

I really love screen printing - it's a great way of creating multiple versions of the same print in the same colour and position and you can vary aesthetic style a lot. I was happy with my prints. My piece accidentally got slightly mis-aligned when doing the second layer but I think it looks cool because with the colours me and my partner picked out it looks like red and blue 3D imagery.