One of the most popular posts on The Art of Doing Stuff has always been my How to Screen Print at home post. People are stunned, shocked and amazed that you don't need a whole workshop or studio to screen print your own tee shirts. Really all you need is an adventurous spirit, a bit of guidance and what I like to refer to as a screw you attitude.
Of course there's gonna be people who tell you that you can't do things. That it's impossible or at the very least hard. A select few people (I'm sure you know some) have an unparalleled knack for making things seem way harder than they actually are. Also. Who cares. So what if something is a little bit hard? So what! You know what's easy? Eating pudding. Eating pudding doesn't even require chewing. You put it in your mouth, mush it around a bit to feel like you're doing something then squash it down your throat. Pudding. Pudding is good and pudding is easy. But this website is not for pudding eaters. This site, The Art of Doing Stuff, is for people who want a little something to chew on.
Besides most things aren't that hard. They're just scary.
Let's talk about screen printing shall we? First off, it's not incredibly easy. It's not pudding.
But it really isn't very hard either. I mean, I taught myself the basics of it through a bit of research and a bunch of trial and error. Some guessing was thrown in there just for fun too.
Even though I successfully screen printed at home, I wanted to learn more about it and get a better understanding of some of the more advanced techniques and principles. So this January I started a semester long Screen Printing course at The Dundas Valley School of Art, a local independent art school. It's the same place I took a couple of photography courses when I wanted to learn how to take a photo without giving myself a migraine.
So welcome to my class. Where none of my photographic skills are at all evident.
First allow me to introduce you to our instructor Laura. She also manages the Print Studio's Facebook page where you can see some of the work I'm doing and the (much better) work of others.
Laura heads up the Printmaking department at The Dundas Valley School of Art.
Here's the funniest thing about the entire class. See that sink in the middle of the room? It's the big white thing with pipes running to it. Yeah, it's made out of wood. And shockingly after our instructor Laura painted and sealed it, it works perfectly fine. Do not be surprised if you see me creating a wood sink in the future. See? There you go. A perfect example of a thing that most people would say NO, you can't, you shouldn't, it won't work, it'll be too hard. Blah, blah.
Screw you and all that.
Everybody's working on something different and everyone is at different levels. Some of the people in the class have taken the course before and they've come back to work on more projects. At the moment I'm working on converting images to grayscale so I can print images that are only one colour, but look like they're several colours. Like my cleaver above. Turns out I got it wrong, lol. It happens. The image is too fine, the dots too small, so when it's printed it looks too solid. I have to adjust it in Photoshop.
Grayscale you see, is when you take an image and convert it in Photoshop so that instead of being solid, it's actually made up of tiny dots (like pixels). The closer the dots are together and the more of them there are, the darker that portion of the photo looks. So the handle of my cleaver has a lot of dots close together, while the blade of the cleaver has fewer dots that are further apart. It looks like it's made with a few different shades of gray and black, but it's all just black dots at different distances, fooling your eye.
So now I'll try again at home to get my dots right.
Here some of my classmates are at the actual printing table. They've come up with the image they want to print, have made their screens and now they're actually doing some printing onto paper.
The first print we all did was a plain, one colour print to get used to the motions and pressure we needed when printing. Once you get that done you can graduate to prints with a few colours or placements. You're allowed to experiment. You're allowed to do just about anything actually.
For instance I had no idea you could do anything like this with screen printing.
It's colour gradation. Or something like that. I got so excited over the technique that I had to make room in my head for all the excitement by forgetting the proper name for it. I actually forgot my own name for a while and Laura the teacher can confirm I made some sort of barking sound when I saw the results the first time.
To do this sort of thing instead of using one colour, you put dots of colour along the screen and kind of wiggle your squeegee as you run the colour across.
A couple of us tried this technique. That's JoJo trying it herself on her rainbow print. She didn't bark. She, like most people, is refined enough not to make animal sounds when she gets excited.
Here's her final print.
JoJo desperately searched the city to buy a hedgehog recently. Every pet store she went into said No. They had no hedgehogs. She then came to class and made this print.
Another woman in the class screen printed monograms onto pillows which is such a great idea.
Along with my cleaver, I also made a print of Cuddles. Starting with a photograph of Cuddles, I erased the background, converted it to a sketch, traced it onto transparency and then hand finished the rest of the shading and details until it looked good.
Then I took the screen I made with that transparency and screen printed over a watercolour I had done of Cuddles. Getting this ...
I have a couple of more classes to go where hopefully I'll perfect this cleaver screen of mine. Because once it gets done, I can get on with printing up some towels and tee shirts to sell on my SHOP page. My goal is to have 50 cleaver tea towels, 50 Cuddles tea towels and maybe a few tee shirts as well to sell.
AND once I'm finished taking my course I'll be organizing a How to Screen Print at home live video course for all of you who want to try it but are a tiny bit afraid to do it without someone walking you through it. By the end of my course you'll be confident enough to do it yourself.
Because it ain't that hard. Any of it.
Jordan
I'm so jealous - I remember passing by the printmaking studio at my old school and wishing I had the time to join in. Screenprinting looks so much fun. Can't wait for that video!
Janet
Woof...woof!
Gwen H.
I would love to take your class. The print of Cuddles was cute.
maggie van sickle
I will for sure buy a Cuddles Tee. I love the coloured print of her. That poor little hen went through a lot as did you so a Cuddles tee is fitting I think. Put me on your list please Karen.
Karen
:) The Cuddles list is growing, lol. Thanks Maggie! ~ karen!
Lynne from Design The Life You Want To Live
Holy batman, I totally want to take your video course. Can you start it. right. now?! I'm barking with excitement.
:) Lynne
Shauna
I'm pretty sure I'll want to take your class. I've been curious about screen printing for some time now, but I don't have the patience to research and figure everything out on my own. I want to be lazy'ish and just have someone else do the research then teach me. So, this is perfect.
Karen
Thanks Shauna! I'm just figuring the course out right now. I have to decide whether to offer the course really cheaply and have it be just instructional. OR to try to put together small kits for everyone so you'd get the whole kit you need to start immediately with me as I instruct. Obviously that would increase the cost. Thinking .... :) ~ karen!
Shauna
Maybe instructional with a link after someone signs up to a site where they can just buy a starter kit? I know kits can be around $200 for everything, and not sure I would want to invest in the stuff before I've decided whether I want to put the time into doing it. Others, however, may be ready to learn by doing and can purchase the starter kit ahead of time and do it along with you.
Just food for thought.
Karen
Oh no, no, no lol. You don't need to spend $200 on a kit. Plus I'd make sure I got a reallyyyyy good deal on the supplies. The whole point is to do it at home for cheap. :) ~ karen!
Shauna
I do like cheap. And, I do like easy. :)
Robin
LoVe what you have created with "Cuddles"
Feral Turtle
This is freaking awesome!!!
Mary Kay
I. can't. WAIT.!!! I loved our silk screening class when I was in high school and can't wait to try it again!!
Tora Geirs
LOL I could not stop myself from laughing wen reading your post LOL you are funny I like that. I also love this post and the photos and how you did. Looking forward to see more about this screen printing. Thank´s for sharing.
Karen
You're welcome Tora! ~ karen
Fiona Verdouw
Hey Karen, love the screen printing! - I did a course a few years back, but in my course, all the images we produced were hand-cut from litho paper (like stencils). I really wanted to get to the point you did with the cleaver, or even the complexity of Cuddles' rear end - surely this was not hand cut from litho paper?!? HOW did you get your image from original drawing to print ready?? (Is this going to be a "Tune in next time..." answer?). Also, what does it say about me if I love to eat Créme Brulee? Short of knawing on a loaf of uncut Biscotti, there's not too many desserts that consume more energy than they give out!
Karen
Hi Fiona. That's the sort of thing I'd cover in the course when I have it. It's a Photoshop skill as opposed to a screen printing skill. ~ karen!
Liz
not sure if I missed a post... but is this lovely print a tribute to Cuddles, or is she still with us and maybe just your favorite?
Karen
She's still with us Liz! She hasn't laid an egg since her episode but she's till alive. I do however believe she'll probably be the next chicken to die and in all probability it could be within the next 6 months or year based on how long chickens generally live. So you're kind of right, I did want to find some sort of way to have her live on because she's been such a big part of not only my life but this site. ~ karen!
Jody
That is so cool. I love Cuddles butt. I love Cuddles colours. I know I'll love Cuddles screen printed on a tea towel.
Katie Schneider
LOVE!
Rondina
You need to sell Cuddles t-shirts. That's beautiful.
Maria
Love the fluffy butt cuddles picture. It is very hippy dippy groovy and free. Also really like the hedgehog.
75% of doing anything is being willing to fail, fail big, try again, fail bigger.
I taught myself woodworking because I wasn't willing to spend $30,000 of my precious dollars to get new faces on the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. I built four cabinets for the bathroom to make the bathroom sink, a toilet surround storage center and a storage cabinet on top of the bathroom sink. I also built a kitchen cabinet, installed new counter tops, refaced the bottom cabinets, installed back splashes and built a wall. With a door in it. And built glass front cabinet doors on the old carcasses. Total cost including the table saw and special dado blade? $2000. I've also built and installed counter tops and cabinets in our den, built a chicken coop because I was inspired by yours, a dog house stand, a rain break for the back porch and a stand for the chicken waterer. All because I was willing to buy big pieces of wood and reduce them to sawdust until I learned to do it. Right now I am breaking apart pallets to salvage the wood because I want a corner cabinet and a jelly cabinet and hey, free wood. I'm also making a table and chairs for the new grandson but not out of pallet wood.
Like Karen says, Get Your Mess On Ladies!!
Lynn Johannson
Go Maria! I too am buying power tools and making lots of sawdust. I get the results I want and don't have someone else "fixing" layout or design because not doing it my way is easier for them.
I propose sending poor Karen pictures of our projects, failed or otherwise. With much thanks to Karen, we are doing stuff and not afraid to fail!!!!!!
Maria
whenever I read the address for the website before I've had my coffee--theartofdoingstuff.com--I usually read it
t HEART of doing stuff.com
I propose that Karen is the heart of the empowered (pun intended) woman. She's certainly inspired me.
Raise your screwdrivers in a cheer if you agree!
Lynn Johannson
PERFECT! Maria, you're a genius! The heart of doing stuff! Why did I never see that? Karen, you were talking about looking for a new name.... This sure fits how I feel about you and your blog. What do you think?
Raise your screwdrivers to Karen!
Karen
Thanks Lynn, lol. But no, I'm definitely not looking for a new name. Omg no. I'm redesigning the look of the site, not renaming it. But thanks for the raised screwdriver! ~ karen
Pam
Is it weird that I now have a craving for pudding?
Steven Davis
Are you looking at doing color separations?
If you have access to In Design, I think it has that function. There may be done open source options or free older versions of the software.
Registration is the key.
Nancy Blue Moon
OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY..I already love the clever towel you sent me and now I can buy some more stuff!!!!..I gotta sell some junk on eBay!!!!...Woo-Hoo!
Joules (from Pocketful of Joules)
Ok, that Cuddles print is AMAZING! And I think you're going to have to make a buttload of t-shirts... I am certainly going to have to buy one! =)