Stencil Screen Printing

In Tuesday's lesson we entered the world of screen printing; for most it was a first, yet few ( including myself ) did have some prior experience. To ease us into this new process and media, we started off by doing stencil screen printing. This requires less preparation on the silk screens yet more technical skills in paper cutting. As this lesson was aimed to ease us into the process we were provided with a series of pre-chosen designs, ranging from flamenco dancers to banjos, I chose the silhouette of a Bull.

Firstly I cut away the black image, leaving the white background behind as my initial stencil. In order to cut out these images we had to use a scalpel, which required a safety talk first. Once the stencil was made it was time to mix the colours. Any colour I chose needed to be diluted with binder, this enables the ink to be applied smoother. You are also able achieve some really nice transparency effects if you change the ratio of binder to ink. Normally you would need around 50/50 ratio of binder to ink but when using white you should add more binder and even more if you wish it to be less opaque.

With the ink mixed and the stencil cut it was time to prepare the screen; we needed to tape the stencil to the back of the screen, not the side where you drag the ink, that is a common misconception. Next stage was finding a squeegee, which is a wooden handled scraping implement with a rubber blade that is used to force the ink through the silk screen onto the substrate. With all of the appropriate components I was ready to print.

Only a thin line of ink, placed at the top of the screen, was required otherwise the paper stencil would have been over saturated and therefore would have ripped when the dragging motion was applied. It is important to apply a decent amount of pressure when dragging the ink as too little would produce a patchy image and too much would cause a staggering and overloaded effect. After using one colour ink on multiple surfaces it was time to wash the screen thoroughly, however I was foolish and forgot to remove my stencil from the screen before I placed it under the tap, thus washing my stencil off and turning it into a ball of wet paper. To remedy this so that I could continue printing I decided to use the internal image from my original stencil, this created a negative image. I actually ended up preferring the negative.

Some are obsessive over the neatness of their prints and some love the effects of the unexpected mishaps in the process. I know that when i started the prints I was adamant that they be perfect but as I went on with the process I began to enjoy the imperfections of my work more and more, I found they produced a far more appealing, handmade effect. This effect was amplified by my use of multi-media surfaces to print on. Starting out with just coloured paper made a pleasing series of prints but my favourites were the ones on newsprint, parcel paper and my collage background.