Tweed Run

The Tweed Run is an amazingly stylish bicycle event and Rugby, one of our favorite stores, recently sponsored it in NY. We would LOVE to be a part of this next time!

Photo source.

Screenprinting . Week 3

Yesterday we burned our screens. It's a fairly easy process, but takes some time. First you oil your images so that the paper becomes like velum, or just use velum!

Then you drag a thick liquid emulsion across your screen, let it dry, then place it on top of your image(s), weight it down and place it on the machine that exposes the design to a bright light for 5 minutes. The emulsion doesn't get baked into the black parts of your images, onlythe transparent parts. You then wash off the emulsion and you're left with your images burned into the screen.

The VW is just a stain from the previous user :)

Next week we'll begin printing!

Screenpriting . Week 2

For our second screenprinting class, we cleaned our screens (this is more involved than just scrubbing) and practiced stencils.

So, this is how my screen started when I got it. The remainder of the last person's artwork to use it.

We remove the emulsion with some fairly serious chemicals and make sure that everything comes clean, so it looks like this. The ink will stain the screen so you have to hold it up to the light to actually see if there's still emulsion left or if it has just been stained.

We made a stencil from contact paper, just to practice the stencil technique in case you're not burning your screen with emulsion. I made an arrow, Heath made a +.

Again, this is still just practice, but I find that the mistakes actually turn out quite aesthetically pleasing.

Our third class is today, where we'll learn how to burn our screens with our chosen designs. I'll post all about the process next week!