26th July
Finally, it was the day I was going to screen print everything. I went to the studio in the afternoon and Gen made the second screen while I was there so I could see how that went.
We had to remake the second screen thrice because ghosts kept appearing in it. By ghosts, I mean remnants of the previous design.
We then placed and set the first screen in place. We mixed ink because I wanted something dark black. We tried to use the metal arms for the squeegee but because it was a little complicated we tried to do it by hand. The first page prints came out really nice, although they were quite distressed in places because I was finding it really hard to apply even pressure. I had never done screen printing before this and was honestly quite intimidated because everyone I spoke to in the course said that it was very hard. However, I was pleasantly surprised with the results because I quite liked even the distressed ones. I first printed on newsprint for practice, and did two sheets of shogi and then three sheets of Himalayan paper. It was much harder to do the print on the Himalayan paper because the design lined up with the very edge of the paper. The paper was so thin that it stuck to the screen and the ink bled through onto the bed. The dots from the vacuum are also very prominent.
The second screen was harder and we decided to take time and attach the metal arm. The results were not the best, but I still quite like them. This was the design where I had made a mistake. The design was much longer than the Himalayan paper. We had to try and get different parts on the paper so I could cut and use different pieces. The ink dried on the screen and so we had to go quicker and the last print entirely tore. I think the metal arm was too strong for the thin Himalayan paper.
Comments