Screen Printing onto a Jumper

Skill

Learning how to screen print my illustrations onto clothing.

Approach to Learning

As screen printing onto clothes is not very different from printing onto pillowcases/ strip of cotton I just thought I would experiment and learn from watching others.

Key Tips from the Learning Process

(also see Screen Printing onto Pillowcases)

1. I had to print over the jumper's seams on the shoulders and along the bottom. This meant that there was a clog up of paint after printing and sometimes it would miss a bit off. Gareth, who works in screen printing, suggested that I had paper towel ready to blot the excess and I could hand paint the missing bits.
2. The jumpers were quite thick so they took a long time to dry. After waiting a long timeI found out from Gareth, on my course, that there were fans available to speed up the process.
3. One of the fashion students told me that once the print was dry, if I ironed the jumper it would last longer when I wash it.

My screen with the weights on two corners making it stable preventing it from moving when I print.

Learning from my mistake with the pillowcases, I had a test run on an old t-shirt. The picture on the right shows the problem I had with seams.

Overall...

Seeing my illustration blown-up and printed on a jumper has made me feel more confident about my work. While screen- printing is messy and it can go wrong really easily, it has taught me to be less precious about my work, made me experiment more.

Screen Printing onto Pillowcases

Skill

Screen printing onto cotton pillowcases

Approach to Learning

Carrying on from the refresher screen print workshop I decided to experiment with different material etc.

Key Tips from the Learning Process

1. The images looked 'smudgy' after I printed them. I think that this was due to either the cheap cotton pillowcases so the paint bled more than expected, or, I didn't clean my screen properly. From this I learnt that I should carry out a test print on a scrap bit of material first before printing. I should also wipe down my screen properly after each use, even if its the same colour because I found out from another student that it keeps the image looking sharp.
2. Put some newsprint in between each layer so that the paint doesn't soak through. I found this out the hard way and forgot the first time...
3. Iron out any creases before printing so there are no glitches once the image is printed.
4. At first I found the image smudged once printed. This was because the I should have pulled the pillowcases taught before pinning to the table and the put the pins in tighter.
5. The image that I had on my screen was only two of the three trees. I printed the two right hand trees first and learnt that if I covered them with newsprint I could print the third straight away. This made lining them up difficult as I couldn't see them. I had to measure distances out and mark where the third had to go in pencil.

The faint, smudging around the edge of the print-

Overall...

I feel I have learnt a lot from my mistakes. Although this made the entire process twice as long, it means I am unlikely to forget and make the same mistake again.

Screen Printing onto Cloth

This was my first attempt at screen printing onto cloth. Before this exercise, I had only done screen printing once before, and this was onto paper.

Skill

Learning how to screen print my illustrations.

Approach to Learning

I went to a refresher screen printing workshop last week. I had already been to one but because I had not done any screen printing since, my knowledge of the process was very vague.

Process Notes

Key Tips from the Learning Process

1. Time management. Screen printing is a very long process - while I was waiting for the screen to dry there would be gaps of an hour long. I found I could use the time to prepare my image ready for exposure.
2. Remember do not expose the screen to light until image has been exposed. It did not happen to me, but another girl forgot and took hers out the room while I was there.
3. The first image on this post is the original image printed from a computer onto acetate. I learnt that by doing this it makes the final image stronger once printed.
4. Remember to always put weights on the screen or the print will come out blurry. (I always seemed to forget)
5. There is almost always a member of staff who is on drop-in who can help

Overall...

The refresher workshop was a good way to get started, but I found the best way to learn was actually carrying out the process myself. This way I got a feel for how long and laborious screen printing is- the workshop only lasted for half an hour and made the process look simple, whereas realistically, screen printing can take all day. I am a hands- on learner.