
I’m waiting for new screens to arrive, so in the mean time I had my old YuDu screen sitting around and I decided to try a two color print with it. I had a single transparency sheet sitting around, it was actually from an inkjet printable pack, but I ruined it. They have this sticky backing on it to hold the ink from the inkjets, but I accidentally printed on the wrong side and then when I went to wash it off it made the back un-sticky. Whoops. I thought I’d be fun to take photos along the way today and share a little glimpse of the process.

I decided the transparancy would be perfect to try out using India ink to trace around my drawing. First I traced around my little moose with a dip pen and the India ink and then I flipped my transparency around and filled in a background with a paint brush and the India ink. I really like this method for the hand drawn effect it gives the prints.

Then after coating my screen with emulsion and letting it dry in front of my box fan ($8 at Goodwill) for about 10 minutes it’s ready to burn. I cut my transparency apart between the ships and positioned them on my glass and laid the screen over it. Then I expose it for 8 minutes.

I’m just keeping it real with these photos. I do this out of my laundry / cat room. I folded laundry while the screens burned, cleaned out the litter box, swept… Glamorous life, I tell ya. But seriously, this irritates me and will be getting beautified sometime soon.

After the screens done burning I take it to my sink to rinse out. The light green is where the light was blocked by the ink on the transparency. The exposed emulsion is a darker green, but after reacting with my water (with our high iron/mineral content) it turns a lovely shade of grey for me.

After all the unexposed emulsion is washed away I’m left with my screen ready to print. This side, with the fine lines, I’ll print second. The black on the screen, the pickaxe and “one more block” (from a t-shirt print for my stepson who loves Minecraft) is stained on the screen. It doesn’t affect the screen or it’s use. I believe you can use a specific cleaner to get that off, but I don’t have any and don’t really care about it being there. It doesn’t hurt the prints.

I let my screen dry in front of the fan and gather paper and cut fabric to size.



After the screen is dry I tape off the detailed side and my exposure gauge (this lets me know if my screen was properly exposed) and begin to make registration marks for my paper and fabric so I know just where to print. When I lay my material down I want to be sure the print goes right into the center of it, so registration marks with the blue tape help me line it up. I do have hinge clamps on the way to hold my screens in place, as this is important for multiple color prints, but since this is a crappy, thin YuDu screen, I can just tape it to the table at the top and it’s a great “hinge”.

Now I’m ready to pull ink through. First I pull the more solid, background color. I wanted my baby moose to be pink.

After I am done printing my pink background, I wash my screen and clean up my mess. The screen has to dry again, as well as my prints. once all is dry, I’m ready to do the second color.

But first I had to mix it up. I wanted a dark grey to go with the pink. I picked up a Pyrex-style bowl at Goodwill for a few dollars and use that to mix my inks in. After I’m done mixing (and using in this case) it’s easy for me to scrape down the sides (with my dollar store spatula and thrifted spoons) and get all the excess ink into a jar for storage. I use food storage containers from the Dollar Store as well as old peanut butter and jelly jars I save.

It’s so satisfying to get these prints as an end product. From my conception as a drawing to a final print is an amazing sense of achievement. Not all of the prints lined up perfectly, but I like both perfect and imperfect. This was my first attempt at two color screen printing and I’m so excited with how easily it went. But I do have to say, it wouldn’t have been possible with out Hilary Williams videos at Creative Bug. If you are interested in screen printing, I highly recommend watching all of her videos. It was a great refresher and I learned some new things as well. In particular, I liked how she coated her screens with emulsion so much better than what I was doing, so I now follow her example and I’m so pleased with the results. These prints (fabric and paper) will also be listed in my Esty shop in the very near future. I’ll be sure to make an announcement when that happens.