Studio Experimentation: Custom Silk Screens

Experiments with new products and techniques continues into February, with EZScreenPrint.  As always, I look for ways to create my own designs and to reproduce them onto my work as cost-effectively and easily as possible.  My prior experience with silk screening was 'back in the day,' when we had to use huge wood framed screens, x-acto knives, pro film, and highly toxic chemicals to burn designs onto the screens.  It was a very labor-intensive process, fraught with peril; one wrong move with your knife or during the application of the chemicals, your screen was ruined, and you had to start all over again.  Fast forward many decades (not telling how many, but let's just say that Earth Wind & Fire was still producing music like Serpentine Fire when I last silk screened) to now, with EZScreenPrint.  The process is MUCH simpler, not toxic at all, and my results were great. 

Take a look at how I did my first screen, inspired by a Kuba cloth textile design:

The design:  Sharpie marker on Bristol board.  I knew I wanted strips, so did them sized to fit onto the final 5"x7" screen.

The prep:  I printed the designs onto acetate sheets, using my computer's printer.  I cut them into strips, two at a time.

The exposure:  here are the two strips I chose as the first test; the acetate strips are on top of the film (that's the green you see), sandwiched between a sheet of Lucite and a black felt board, with the binder clips keeping everything tightly together so light goes only where it should. 
Exposure time:  60 seconds, in the sun (No chemicals!).

The screen:  after washing off the emulsion under regular tap water (again, no chemicals!), and gently brushing off any residue, here is the screen, lying under the sun for another 15 minutes to give it a final cure.  The three lighter areas on the top edge are where the binder clip was...it won't affect the screen, but it's a good reminder to keep the clips away from the design area!

The prints:  here are two pieces of conditioned, raw polymer clay with the designs silk screened onto them.  I am so excited about the possibilities of this...much more to come....

Stay tuned.