Screen Printing Part 2

Last night was the second half of the screen printing workshop I talked about last week.  I was hopeful that my prints would turn out better this week.

Molly, the instructor, had washed the filler out of the screens for us (you need a power washer) so we had a blank screen to start with. Here is Zella painting on the drawing fluid for the second color of her print.

Since I had learned from my mistakes last week, I did better with the drawing fluid this week.  I also did better getting the filler on the screen.  Below Mary is trying to register the second color to match with the first color prints.  (Molly is holding the screen.) Mary had a great print of a paper bag.

I did better with the fluid and filler, but when it came time to print, I was having trouble (that was opposite of last week).  We could not figure out was was going on.  It seemed on one side, at mostly the border edge,  the ink would either not print, or it would print too much and "blob" and smear.  I did not get one good print.  Below is an attempt.

We think it might have been a combination of things (just like last week).  First, the design might have been too big for the screen and therefore was too close to the edges.  The squeegee was just barely big enough to cover the design and there might have been an issue with the height of the screen off the bed.  I also had a different screen than last week, so it could have been the screen.

What was frustrating wasn't the fact that the prints weren't great, but the fact that we couldn't figure out how to solve the problem.  Zella was also having some issues with her prints.  Mary's turned out great and I didn't stay to see how the last prints turned out.

I'm glad I got to try it at the workshop instead of getting all the stuff and trying it at home.  And I am learning to appreciate original prints more and more with each workshop I take.

On the brighter side, literally,  I was talking to Molly and noticing the beautiful trees as I looked out the window behind her and I saw a rainbow.  We went outside and saw this gorgeous arc all the way across the sky (couldn't get it all in with my camera).  It was very bright and also had a double rainbow (which you can just barely see in the corner of the picture.

One of the best rainbows I have seen.  I also learned it is kind of hard to take pictures of rainbows (at least with a  pocket camera).

It was a good experience and I enjoyed working with all the people there.