On a sunny Sunday afternoon, some great friends and their children came by to try out some screen printing.
The plan was to print using paper stencils, which we'd stick to the screens and hopefully run off 4 or more prints before they disintergrated.
I had prepared 6 or 7 designs, and cut-out some stencils already, so that people wouldn't have to spend a long time cutting out their own design, and to reduce the risk of having lots of knives about and possible injuries.
I had two small screens available, attached with hinges to boards, so the alignment and pulling could be fairly accurate... or at least that was the plan... but as is so common with screen printing, the plans soon deviated and we had to wrk on the fly. The persistance of the children and the assistance of their parents really shone through.
Firstly, obviously no one had any interest in printing anything other than their own designs. So the children were looking up examples of band logos, recreating them on paper, and then cutting them out. And to their immense credit, they did this with a lot of patience and care. I was concerned about the practicalities of cutting out a the text of "Smashing Pumpkins", but amazingliy Noah did a great job. Elsewhere Tim and Emmanuelle did amazingliy, working with their daughter and nephew, to deciper the kid's design wants, and then translate that to paper and cut-out.
6 children's designs, probably about 12 stencils cut out, with varying levels of difficulty... and "0" injuries.
Once we had the stencils prepared, we would position it on the board, with a piece of newsprint below. We would then flood the screen and the stencil would stick to the screen. We could then dispose of the newsprint, and replace it with a decent sheet of paper, and pull the ink across to make a proper print.
The stencils held up pretty well for 4 or so prints. Often the second pull delivered the best print.
I was trying to use this opportunity to use inks I had left over from previous sessions I'd done for me. So we had jars and plastic boxes with ready mixed ink and medium. This did probably reduce the colour options.
The plan was to print on to paper or card, but I had left room for people to print on t-shirts, if they brought them. Which two children duely did. However I hadn't really prepared properly for this, so the inks we had were just water-based inks, which will probably not last any washing. However the transfer of the ink on to the t-shirts was surprisingly successful (using the paper stencils). I was preparing for much disapointment, but the paper stencils held up well, and I guess because the tee-shirt has some 'give', it allows for putting quite a lot of pressure on the pull, which then gives a good delivery of ink. Even the detailed "Smashing Pumpkins" script, held up pretty well.
