Screen printing is great. I love giving old t-shirts new life by printing my personal designs on them.
Plus, art is better when you can wear it.
I have done screenprinting before, but never for something this ambitious. I challenged myself to create a three coloured print design, drawing and cutting the stencils by hand, with a very stable set up consisting of a piece of cardboard on my bed, and a handy sheet of acrylic to keep the fabric flat(-ish.)
Inspiration for the art: I like seagulls and their crazy personalities and thought it would be great to have a shirt with one of these birds on the back, displaying their chaotic nature.
Sketches to Stencils
I sketched and lined the base art then traced it to create a stencil for each colour. When I was cutting out the black stencil I regretted using such intricate detail for the chips, but I pressed on and only cut my finger once - an improvement for me (maybe next time I’ll aim for no injuries.)
First Layer (Yellow)
Looking good so far!
(the print, not the photo.)
Second Layer (White)
I really like this lineless look and I may use this for a future design. This design needs lines though because the chips look like mush at this stage.
Third Layer (Black)
This is the obligatory creative blog picture where I pretend that I am capturing the moment of active printing when - in reality - this would not be possible without shifting the alignment of the screen and ruining the design. It does really look like I’m doing something though doesn’t it!
A Little Drama
Oh no - has the black ink bled through the stencil?
False alarm - I had used too much ink and the paper stencil stuck to the shirt. I peeled it off (pile on the right) and all was well.
I’m a bit annoyed about the two sqaures I forgot to cover up on the mesh (right) but I guess it gives it a rustic edge? There’s also some bad alignment going on at the top part, but I think the shaking look is kind of cool and embodies that crazy seagull energy I want. The good thing is you can tell what it is...I hope.
Third Layer (Black Border)
There we go, I’ve added a border. It’s a little rough looking but, once again, rustic right?
Final Words
Things I would like to add:
- Turn the two accidental marks into an exclaimation mark (!) this will both hide the accident and centre the design (the main image is slightly off)
- Make the chip box more obvious: Showed it to my gran and she didn’t get it. Can’t have that. I’ll add a bit more detail and maybe a brand mark.
Evaluation (Like I’m still in uni):
So I’m clearly not the best screen printer in the world. I have yet to work out how hard I should be pressing the squeege, I use paper stock which is too thin, my scalpel work is still rough, I don’t have all of the gadgets and I know very little silkscreen(?) related lingo.
However, I love a little imperfection in my art, it makes things look more human - could AI make this? (don’t answer that.) The visual mistakes show my learning process and let others know that screenprinting (and art in general) is something anybody can do - and I did it.
That being said, the more I practice the better I’ll get, until I end up with no human error and will have to retcon everything I just said.
Stay tuned for the final product photo!