tetchi blog

Tetchi's blog about life and stuff

Silkscreening!


On Sunday I attended a workshop run by Spins & Needles called “Silkscreening 101”. At this workshop, we learned how to make our own silkscreen frames and use them for printing. We were to bring one black & white design to the workshop, so I decided to bring my Move Your Mountain design. I’ve always wanted to make my own silkscreen so I was super-excited for this workshop!

The first step was to build the frame. The frames were put together, and then the screen was stapled onto the frame so that it was really tight on the frame.

The screen

Frame complete!

I forgot to take a picture, but after we built our frame we applied a thin layer of photo emulsion onto our silkscreen. While we waited for the emulsion to dry, we took a walk to Katari on Elgin Street and got our designs printed on an acetate sheet.

MYM logo on acetate sheet

Move Your Mountain design on an acetate sheet

The next step was to prepare the positive. We placed our acetate sheet on top of our silkscreen, and let it sit under the light for approximately 12 minutes. This made is so that the areas that are not hit by the light (i.e. the black parts on the acetate) will become soft and washable afterwards.

Baking the screen

Baking the screen

This is what the screen looks like after the baking. The light green area is then washed off using lukewarm water, leaving behind only the baked emulsion in the areas that were transparent on the acetate sheet.

Dried up emulsion

Dried up emulsion

Next, we let the screens sit in front a fan for a bit to let it dry.

Drying off the screen

Drying off the screen… exciting

The screen is now complete and ready for printing! YEAH!!! Really impressed at how smooth and accurate it turned out.

Complete screen

Screen complete!

I went nuts and started printing on all sorts of materials. I started off with white ink on pink cloth, and I think it looked awesome. Good to know for when I make t-shirts in the future.

First screen

Move Your Mountain logo on pink cloth

I then tried white ink on a black shirt. Looks rad, if I may say so myself! I’m starting to like the ‘negative’ version of the Move Your Mountain logo more than the original :)

First MyM Shirt ever

The first Move Your Mountain t-shirt ever.

I made my mark on Spins and Needle’s communal tarp as well. The blue brain design is my friend Grant Lucas’ bad-ass design, which also turned out awesome!

Communal tarp

Move Your Mountain logo on communal tarp

Overall I was extremely happy with the way my screen turned out, and had a blast at the workshop. I was worried that I might mess up my screen somehow, but I was surprised to learn that it’s pretty hard to mess up a screen. I found myself a new hobby, and I’m definitely going to be making more designs. I’ll be using this Move Your Mountain screen for future merch as well (tees, prints, tote bags, etc.). Big thanks to Melanie from Spins and Needles for organizing and teaching at this workshop – you were awesome!

This workshop runs monthly, so I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to silkscreen and make their own unique screen in the process.

1 Comments

  • David
    David on October 20th, 2011

    Hey, that looks like it was a lot of fun. How long was the entire process, would you say? Also, when are we going to see MYM shirts on Shopify? ;)

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