[Zanda]

Hi, I've been working on a new screen printed edition of my artwork, and I want to be transparent about what I find at least a very interesting and exiting process.

I've called the title Insight into A screen print process, because there is more than one way to skin a rabbit.

Partly my inspiration for starting this was from looking at EB's excellent thread. There were parts of his process that were missed, which is entirely understandable. When you're screen printing, often speed is of the essence, before paints dry etc which leaves precious little time to comfortably document what is happening.

However I have tried my best to do this, by having a camera on standby near to my working area. So even though some of the pictures may not be of the greatest quality, they should at least demonstrate aspects of my screen printing method.

The artwork is called Barcode Fish and it is about commodification of life. So before I begin to show the steps involved in making the printed edition I will show a picture of what the stencil looks like on a wall.

[Zanda]

Some of the initial stages I only managed to document using my phone which I uploaded to instagram (zandapic). These are early stencils I sprayed onto paper to later be scanned.

[Zanda]

This pic is taken in the darkroom. In the foreground is a trough and behind that a pot of expensive and rather toxic light sensitive dirasol (other makes are available on the market) which I use for coating the screen.

So under a red light, the sticky light senstive solution will be poured into the trough, and starting at the bottom of my screen, I will pull the trough upwards while pressing it against the screen (the right amount of pressure is needed at this point). Too much pressure and the screen will be coated too thinly too little and the coating will be too thick and uneven.

[Zanda]

After the solution has fully dried (about 30 mins) and is now reactive, I place the screen onto the light exposure unit with the stencil between the screen and halogen bulb lights. I then set the timer on the unit, close the lid, start the vacuum seal (to block out any unwanted light pollution) and start it. Wait until this timed process ends (there is a countdown clock on the unit), take the screen out of the light unit and make my way over to the wash out sink.

[Zanda]

So crucially, areas on the screen which have seen (roughly 4 mins) halogen light have now hardened, but areas which were blocked off from the light, have not experienced any hardening, so it washes away with water. The H20 also stops the chemical reaction. My background stencil has now appeared.

[Zanda]

I then leave the screen to dry - infront of a fan normally, and usually stand it in the sunlit studio for a while to harden off. If there are any holes or imperfections in the coat on the screen (caused by dust etc), now is the time to correct them using a screen blocker. So once all this is done I'm ready to try the screen out.

Now the background screen is securely clamped into the printing table and a generous line of paint/printing medium is applied to the surface of the screen.

[Zanda]

I'm realising at this point in my thread that there are things I could have shown more clearly in my photos but haven't. Such as the squegee - this is what you use to pull the ink over the screen for the image to pass through onto the paper below. But as I mentioned earlier these are tricky moments to capture if taking the photos yourself as everything has to move fast. If you hang around the paint can dry onto the screen ruining it, and the entire process would need to be repeated and the screen remade.

[Zanda]

I'm using masking tape to assist in positioning of my printing paper. A number of the blue backgrounds will be pulled, but not the entire edition all at once. These are now left in a rack to dry. The small holes you can see in the vacuum table suck the paper down to hold it tightly in place.

[Zanda]

While the blue backgrounds are drying I tape down my true grain transparent plastic for registration purposes, allowing it to hinge.

[Zanda]

So I now apply the yellow of the fishes fins to the new screen fitted onto the table, but not onto paper, onto the true grain. This is my registration, so that I know exactly where to place the Fabriano paper with it blue background which is now dry. This is where I need a bit of haste because between screen pulls the yellow can slowly dry.

[Zanda]

So I move the paper around under the true grain until it is the right position, then fold back the plastic on its temporary hinge, lower the top of the vacuum table which holds the screen and pull the yellow ink across the screen onto the print below. This action is repeated for all the available prints which are sitting conveniently in a pile beside me.

[Zanda]

Sooo... hopefully this is all making sense so far. At least my thread is not too content heavy

[Zanda]

Here is the last but not least acetate sitting on top of a pack of Italian Fabriano V paper. This will be used to make the final screen, following the same process as I've demonstrated for the yellow fins.

[zc]

Love these kind of insight's by the artist. Great stuff

[Zanda]

So the black is printed onto the true grain for registration, then my paper is placed underneath and adjusted so that it is sitting in the correct position. Then flap back the true grain plastic, close the top of the table which will start the vacuum bed suction going, and pull the black ink across the paper.

[Zanda]

[Zanda]

Barcode fish drying off

[Zanda]

A fishy manifesto... coming soon ...ish

[Dr Plip]

Sept 11, 2015 20:02:02 GMT 1 Zanda said:

A fishy manifesto... coming soon ...ish

You should have done a BarCOD HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.........

..........sigh.

Looks lovely.

[Zanda]

Barcode fish, or Barcod fish, whichever you prefer is finally being released from Printcave gallery this Friday at 4:00pm BST. Signed edition of 70.

[Zanda]

For those of you who might not have noticed, I have a newly made screen print which is available online from here www.artcave.bigcartel.com/product/barcode-fish

I think it looks pretty interesting in person, but then I would say that wouldn't I.