SCREEN PRINTING

The last of the inductions!

Again, I HAVE screen printed before but I have yet to thoroughly enjoy it/want to do it/know what I am doing. I've done the process before (several times), so in theory I should know HOW TO SCREEN PRINT. In practice, I don't. Lots of worries as I entered the room. Lots of worries whilst I prepared my screen, and then all of those worries piled into bad pressure from shaking, weak hands, a muddled head making me forget everything I actually know and an anxious mood making me a pain to work with. Just the usual then.

INTENTION:

Make a rough print of my house. Only printing A4 size so not room for all the flaps, plus can only print one side of the publication today, but it will be useful to see how it prints and whether the final thing could look the way I want if I used screen print.

SCREEN PRINT IS PRECISE AND NEAT, OFTEN USED IN MASS PRODUCTION. WILL IT HAVE THE SPOOKY, MYSTERIOUS LOOK I WANT? WILL IT LOOK TOO CLEAN? TOO TIDY?

My positives look a mess, but I think they'll look okay when printed together...

HAPPY ACCIDENTS:

We were told to make one ink pot each, so I made black but then I realised that I should really be printing light-dark colours, so I needed another pot for my first layer. Raided the scraps, found a pre-made blue but there wasn't enough! Made do with it until it completely dried out but didn't have enough to finish the nice paper prints.

SOLUTION:

Found another pot (a lighter, aqua colour) and blobbed it right into my reservoir. NOT ENOUGH TIME TO CLEAN MY SCREEN! Ended up making these weird marbled-effect prints with random swirls of both colours. Maybe with any other print, this would have looked wrong and just bad but I think it actually adds to my 'ghostly' aesthetic.

By the end of the session I was feeling so much better. PROUD of what I've made! Happy with how I overcame the issues I had. NOT too scared to go back down there again. Improvement!