Beginnings

My first experience with screen printing was in high school, I think. I did some block printing with linoleum in studio arts, and found an old screen and some inks in my parents' closet. I don't remember exactly what was on the screen at that time, but I remember it being some crude drawing of some sort, probably my uncle's doing.

So, I dusted the kit off and went to work reading the directions. It was just one of those Speedball starter kits, and all the ink was really old. Old, yes, but luckily not dry. There was some photo emulsion stuff in the box, but I'm a little afraid to try it.. I think it might be too dried out, but I'm not sure how well the chemicals hold up after so many years...

I did two prints back then:

One was a one-color tshirt of a figure skater, which I then ended up making about 100 tshirts and selling them to members of my figure skating club. The graphic was kind of clunky, and I ended up losing details in my screen when washing out screen drawing fluid.

The other was a three-color self-portrait (although it of course looked nothing like me). This one I did on paper, and I mostly remember having problems with the screen filler coming off the screen.

[screen filler chunk, oh no!]

Also, I didn't think about registration before I started, so I had problems getting a good print with all three colors. I even left some at just two colors because I didn't want to ruin them.

After these preliminary attempts at screen printing, the screen and inks just sat in my basement for another few years... I once again became interested after reading the books Fingerprint, New Vintage Type, and New Master's of Poster Design and decided that I needed to actually learn how to do it this time, or at least spend more time experimenting to get nice, clean prints.