Screen Printing

Well just completed my first set of shirts. Yesterday Vorrel and I screen printed shirts. They came out really nice.

The screen printing process isn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be, well that's not completely true, I had some problems. The process starts out with an idea on a piece of paper. You tape the picture, drawing, whatever on the bottom of the screen and then trace over it drawing on the actual screen itself, once you are confident you have drawn all of your lines remove your paper. You then take what is called the screen filler and paint on the screen in all the places you do not want to use. This is a very delicate and important process because if you do not fully cover the screen it will let paint through later and ruin the shirt. Also this is hard because if you go outside the lines there is no erasing it. Once you cover all the spaces that need to be blocked out you smooth out the other side that will be touching the shirt so that it will later lay evenly on whatever it is you will be making. Then let dry overnight.

When it is all dry and there are no leaks of light through the filler you can starting making shirts. First put something inside the shirt so the paint does not bleed through. Then have someone hold down your screen firmly against the shirt, pour in a little paint, the paint is a special fabric paint, the length of your screen and then squeegee it over the open parts of the screen then repeat. You do not want to do it to hard or to soft but just enough to force the paint through the little holes in the screen. After about 5-8 passes you can pull up the screen and you have your first shirt.