Deconstructed Screen Printing Process

DECONSTRUCTED SCREEN PRINTING -GETTING STARTED

• ·         Cover your padded print surface or table with newspaper
• ·         Have your squeegee, old hand towel, a paper plate or lid to set your squeegee on, spoons
• ·         Mixing print paste and dyes:

o   Add 5 tablespoons of print paste to one cup of room temperature water (add the print paste all at once to the water otherwise it will gob up!).   Stir well and let sit for an hour then stir some more to mix any remaining print paste.  Paste should be a heavy syrup consistency.   Thicker dye/paste releases slower; thinner paste is wetter so it will release dye more quickly from the screen.

o   Mix approximately 1-2 tsp of dye powder with a little water to mix (this is just a guesstimate!)  Add about ½ to 1 cup of print paste to dye/water combo, depending on how dark you want.

o   You can store print paste in the frig.  I’ve kept mine for months and months!  Just bring to room temperature to use.  If it smells like ammonia, it’s no good. 

o   I use ProChem’s print paste SH (it already contains urea so I don’t need to mix up urea water).

• ·         Lay whatever texture pieces on top of the newspaper (test where your screen shows through so you don’t miss some piece of texture you may want!). 
• ·         Once you are happy with the placement of your textures, lay the screen on top and place a few spoonfuls of dye/print paste mixture in the top/well of your screen.  Using your squeegee spread the dye by scraping down towards you.  Don’t go up and down.  Always spread towards your body.
• ·         You can add dyes to areas on your screen by scraping dye around the screen.   Now to be patient and LET YOUR SCREEN DYE TOTALLY!!!  You can help it along with a hair dryer.  Just make sure the screen is DRY!!!

PRINT TIME

• ·         Have a paper plate or lid to set your squeegee on; have container filled with plain print paste.
• ·         Pin a scrap of fabric or drop cloth on top of your padded/plastic print surface to catch dyes from your printing and you may even get a nice piece of fabric to use (ask Kay about this!).  **make sure to pin going towards the center of your fabric.  This will keep the fabric from pulling out or slipping**
• ·         Now pin your fabric to be printed making sure you are stretching and keeping the fabric taunt.  Make sure you pin about every inch or so to keep the fabric from curling.  You want the fabric nice and tight.  Again, pin towards the center and keep the pins flat. 
• ·         it’s time to print!!!  Lay your screen on your fabric, placing it where you want to start.  Fill the top of the well (furthest away from you) with plain print paste.  Just as you did preparing your screen, use a squeegee and spread the print paste by scraping down towards you.  Don’t go up and down.  Always scrape towards your body.  You will scrap several times…and for the first print, you may have to scrap more often to start the release process.  You can also scrap once or twice and let the print paste sit for about a minute to start the release process.
• ·         The number of prints you can get from one prepared screen can vary depending on the intensely of your dye mixture.  You can always add some dye/print paste to scrape instead of plain print paste.  This will release any remaining dye from your screen as well as adding some add’l color to your print.

HAVE FUN!