- Reclaim screen went well, no issued
- Recoating emulsion was a bit trickier then last time. I panicked and ended up having to put 3 coats on one side and compensated by only putting one coat on other side(not sure if this was a good idea?)
- Hand drew the Lucky Buddha and traced can using bother fine and regular sharpies on Mylar.
- Original sketch with sharpies was great sharp and smooth but there must be something a lot better then these markers??? After holding up to the light, the lines were transparent. After 5-7 times going over the original lines they became less sharp and still could not black them out totally. To much time spent.
- Burn seemed to go well until wash out emulsion. I did go through the proper steps but had to scratch emulsion out with my finger nail. Might have been the three coats on the one side?
- I did manage to get all emulsion out and because of the transparency of the markers in some spots, lines are somewhat jagged and not clean.
- Print well well on paper but the jagged lines did show up on white paper. I was happy that you could read the fine print and make out my initials.
- I printed on 4 old black work t-shirts and one tan, new.
- First black t shirt received 2 passes of ink and came out pale and blotchy. The next 2 I did 3 passes and the last I did 4. The red ink seemed to soak into the shirts and basically became invisible after they sat for an hour.
- The tan shirt received 2 passes of red in and came out quite well, definitely not as sharp as paper but obviously quite different screen printing on cotton. Ink seemed to sit on this better and not absorb nearly as much.
- It was fun and great to print my first t shirt.
After Burn and blotched spot on screen emulsion(scotch tapped out)
Hi Ian and Tyler,
Again, I love your hand drawn film, it’s pretty funny.
As for the coating – it is likely not an issue to have three on one side and one on the other. Another alternative you have is to do a skim coat, which is sliding the scoop coater over the edge of the screen, from top to bottom, like you’re doing a regular coat except not tilted far enough that more emulsion is added. This should both smooth out the emulsion and remove a little from the screen.
Your issue during washout is likely due to the transparency of the film rather than the coating. Like you said, you noticed the sharpie was transparent and had to go over it 7 times, that might not have made it 100% black. Other ink types may make a more opaque stencil.
Your prints turned out great! Do not worry about the poor performance on the black fabrics. Black fabric is extremely difficult to print onto especially with red ink. The paper and the tan fabric turned out amazing!