Today I did my first workshop of 'workshop week' at University, I decided to go to the 'Screen Printing' workshop in Halifax. I was interested in doing this as the last time I did screen painting was when I was 15 so nearly 4 years ago as a part of my GCSE textiles class. I wanted to see how it would be different at a degree level and how it would change from textile materials to graphic materials. For those that missed it or are interested in how its done here is my step by step guide:
Materials:
Pencil or Pen, Pencil is recommended as it can easily be erased
Eraser
Cutting mat
Craft knife
Quality Paper
250ml Acrylic Paint (Amount varies as to how big your image your working with is)
250ml Medium Solution (Amount varies as to how big your image your working with is)
Silk Screen
Squeegee
Palette Knife/Spoon
Step One:
Design your print.
We started by drawing an images with just ordinary shapes and rulers, we could do whatever we liked and were allowed to use as many objects as possible, we then went on to draw to rectangles roughly 7"x5" on a section we thought looked most interesting and most abstract. I then went on to get an A2 piece of paper and draw to A4 sized rectangles on the sheet, I then blew up my boxes by drawing them 3 times their original size (see below)
I decided to take fewer lines into my blown up image as it reminded me of Russian Constructivism, I then erased a few lines to make it a clean cut design. I decided to go with the image, above left, as I felt there were more shapes to work with and preferred this image over all, so the next step was to get draft paper (tracing paper) and put it over the top and sketch.
I then went on to choose my favourite images on two sheets of paper and decide which images I wanted to use, the first one on the left hand side went wrong originally, as I wasn't aware you needed to leave gaps however I worked through it and ended up making more designs. You take a craft knife and cut out the shapes you want to use, however leaving a gap to make sure they don't connect. (This is step two.)
Step Three:
Masking Tape
You then place the screen flat side up and masking tape the cut out image onto the screen.
Step Four:
Positioning.
You then need to proceed by placing the screen print (sides up) onto the material but make sure its fully covered so no paint leaks through the silk screen and on to either your quality paper/card or other material such as fabric.
Step Five:
Paint.
Following on from placing the screen down, you need to mix your paint by getting a plastic cup (easier to throw away and not have to clean up as much mess!!) You then mix Medium Solution and acrylic paint with a 50/50 ratio. I made pastel based colours from primary colours so I mixed 100ml of Medium solution, with 30ml of Red Acrylic and 70ml of White Acrylic, I then made the same solution two more times however swapping the Red for colours such as Blue and Green, this was the outcome!
You then go on to spoon out the paint onto the silk screen in a line at the top of the silk screen!
Then holding your Squeegee at a 45 degree angle you pull the paint smoothly down, you can repeat this, I did it three times for a more full out hard colour and made sure it had the pattern I wanted, with the excess you lift up the squeegee and put the excess back in the pot to reuse!
Then slowly lift up the screen and make sure to hold the paper down, as to not get it stuck and smudge the image! Then wash the screen and squeegee down we got to use these powerful cleaners!!
We then dried out our image, stencil, squeegee and silk screen to reuse and keep on repeating with different colour and placing the stencils on the page to create a design.
This was our sample so we went on to finish our image from what we learnt with our simple and this is what I created!
I did this by running down the silk screen 3 times with the green and once with the pink. I wanted to link this into my current brief of City in Flux by making the colours representing minds, as I am wanting to show mental health within a city. The green represents a tidy mind in which only a few problems cause an issue however, the pink one represents a mentally challenged mind as it has messy sides (representing not knowing where to stop).
I found this class so exciting!!
I know the images don't follow properly I got so into the workshop that I forgot completely about taking photo's!! I think I covered it well though!