Improved screen drying box

Referring to the post Drying an emulsion-coated screen, the box described there worked well except for one thing: the front flaps need to be taped closed after the screen is put inside, before the box is covered with heavy cloth. The trouble is, the tape didn't stick to the cardboard for long. A good deal of new tape was needed each time. So I've modified the box, as follows:

Photo 1: Sticky Back Velcro

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I cut some small tabs of canvas and glued them to the box with white glue and let it dry overnight. Then I cut a strip of self-adhesive Velcro (Photo 1) and applied one side to the canvas tab and the other side to the corresponding position on the box when the flap is closed. Photo 2 shows the tabs folded back, with one half of the Velcro adhered. Photo 3 shows the tabs closed. They secure the front flaps neatly and quickly. They don't exclude all light however so the front of the box still needs to be covered with a heavy dark cloth.

Photo 2: Tabs folded back showing Velcro strips in place

Photo 3: Showing how the tabs close the front flaps

Drying an emulsion-coated screen

After coating a screen with light-sensitive emulsion, the next thing is to let it dry which can take a few hours or overnight. The place where it dries needs to be pitch dark. Any pinpoint of light getting in will send all the timings off and will make the screen much harder to wash out after exposure. My solution is a cardboard box with the chinks well sealed off. I put my head into the box and hold it towards the light to ensure I've got all the chinks. However you can't seal the front in this way, so after closing the flaps with tape, I put a heavy dark cloth over the box, making sure the front is well covered.

Another thing is that the screen should be dried with the screen side down. Therefore it needs to be raised so that the wet emulsion doesn't touch the floor of the box. You could put some blocks at the sides, but that's unsatisfactory because they can be pushed out of place as you are putting the screen in. So I add "risers" made out of cardboard and glued to the box, as shown in the photo below. It's rough and ready method but very effective.

A box for drying screens with "risers" on two sides

Donald Baechler

A few weeks ago I watched a lecture by Donald Baechler to students of his alma mater, Maryland Institute College of Art. It took the form of slides in chronological order. The early paintings were large, an image of, say, a chair floated on an abstract ground. He used enamel house paint on canvas and says they are pristine after thirty years, adding that sometimes we get overcautious about longevity.

Some images

His influences were (are) Warhol, Cy Twombly and Giotto, and I think he mentions Rodin too. 

The black line around the central image is one of his trademarks, he just likes it. Some of the background elements such as the patterns of dots are silk-screened and then collaged on. He doodles obsessively with markers and also draws on his huge collection of images, selecting one that he likes and then blowing it up in a projector to transfer to canvas. He uses ladders and long brushes for his very large paintings. 

Some recent images are representations of money, cartoon wealth, iconic images of moneybags and dollar signs, and he notes that the background images are unrelated, he is disrupting one thing with another thing.

Someone in the audience asks about the white outline. He explains it’s not an outline. Rather, he overpaints the whole central area of the superimposed image with white so that what is underneath will not interfere, then paints on top of the white with a black outline and the white is just there because of not painting up to the edge.

Even though the lecture was almost an hour long and split into five parts, it was absorbing and full of interest. Previously I had found Baechler’s work puzzling and this answered some of the questions. 

His use of screen-printing is interesting because I do it myself, and have used it for the same reason, to incorporate a drawing in a painting. It’s a way of getting a detailed, intricate drawing the way you want it before committing to canvas. Baechler’s use of the medium goes far beyond mine, however. In an exhibition in New York he has used as many as 23 different colours in one painting, each requiring its separate screen and process.

Part 1 of the lecture on YouTube

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Zinnias

Mary Adam, Zinnias, a screenprint on Canson Edition paper

Just finished this screenprint on 100% cotton acid-free Canson Edition paper. It came from some drawings of two small potted plants I got in the garden shop about six weeks ago. The plants have withered now, would they have lasted longer if transplanted to a flower bed? I like the rough unfinished aesthetic which came from painting the separations by hand. This was one of the first drawings:

Mary Adam, Zinnias, pencil and gouache

Pakchoi screenprint

Mary Adam, Pakchoi, screenprint on 9 x 12" paper

The screens for this were made with drawing fluid and screen filler which is time consuming because of waiting for the screen to dry at each stage. I like the technique because it allows for some precision, and clean-up is fairly easy. It's not ideal for fine lines however and in fact this is the third try making this print, the first two fell by the wayside -- it's been going on for months! There won't be many prints left after editing but I'm pleased it has finally come into existence.

New wooden screen attached to desk with hinge clamps

I also want to correct some misinformation from a while back about the availability of wooden screens (http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2011/08/testing-gummed-paper-tape.html). In fact wooden screens are still being made in the traditional way with a groove on the back to hold the cord which is used to stretch the fabric -- I got one recently from Dick Blick, along with a pair of heavyweight hinge clamps specially designed for screen printing. The clamps are fixed to the desk with screws and the wing nuts are adjustable to release the screen for cleaning. And the fabric can be changed at home.

Christmas cards

Mary Adam, three cards from an edition of nineteen

I thought I'd try to make my own cards this year and have almost finished. The design is from a drawing done at San Rafael in late August and is in seven colours, partly relief printed and partly screenprinted. The last colour is still to be done. They're printed on Strathmore 5 x 7" acid-free blanks. The card stock has a marked texture which I wasn't expecting but the ink went on smoothly without any problems. The thing is that I almost never send cards -- this year will be different because I made them myself . . . not sure it makes sense?

Gummed paper tape 2

The screen with the new fabric and gummed paper tape. This will be followed by two coats of urethane varnish over the tape and about 5 mm of screen. A heavier weight of paper would have been better but this is doing the job well enough for now. Will try cartridge paper next time.

Testing the gummed paper tape

Brown paper with a thin coating of gum arabic.

The fabric on my small screen needs changing. It's an old-fashioned wooden frame which enables me to change the fabric myself. I found out yesterday that this type of frame is no longer being made,*** (wooden frames are available, see below)  the aluminum ones are preferred because they don't warp. The disadvantage of aluminum frames is that you have to send them to a shop to stretch new fabric.

Luckily screens don't need new fabric often. The small screen has held up well for about three years, through countless washings, often with chemicals such as bleach. Now it has a haze of ghost images and the gummed tape is breaking up. The tape on that occasion came from a roll which was new at the time but which has since become stuck together because of humidity. So that idea about making my own gummed tape in small amounts as needed now comes into play.

For this job the tape has to stick well to the wood and the screen fabric, I want it to last for a couple of years. The idea is to seal the join between the fabric and the wood so that ink can be cleaned out of the screen thoroughly after use.

The brown paper that I have is rather thin but I tried it anyway. The first try didn't go too well. I applied a single coat of gum arabic with an ordinary soft bristle brush, about a No. 8. Afterwards I realised the gum was thick in places. Went ahead today and cut it into two-inch strips, moistened them with a wad of damp kitchen paper, and stuck them onto the inside of the frame and about 3/4" onto the fabric. The tape stuck in some places and came away in others, which isn't good enough, so I pulled it all off.

I  used the same tape to stick a piece of watercolour paper to plywood and that was fine, it stayed firm.

I made a second set of tape, applying a second thin coat when the first was dry instead of just one coat. I then cut the paper into strips as before, moistened it and applied it to the screen. This appears to have stuck properly. When the tape is fully dry tomorrow I will varnish the whole frame and it should be good for another couple of years.

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*** EDIT, added March 11, 2012: Wooden frames for screen-printing are in fact still being made, see http://mary-adam.blogspot.com/2012/03/pakchoi-screenprint.html

Set-up for exposing the screen positive

I just found this picture in iPhoto. I've posted a similar picture before, but this one explains better what actually happens when exposing a film positive and making a stencil on to light sensitive emulsion.

When doing the screenprints for the landscape series I did everything myself, naturally (who else would do it?) and made many mistakes -- but was startled and brought down to earth by my tutor, who said that in his day they had technicians to do this sort of thing. This was deflationary, for sure, but it seems worthwhile to me to have a total grasp of the process through doing it myself.

The photo shows how the lamp is rigged up at a specific height above the screen -- books can be added or taken away under the board as necessary to get the exact distance, it's a very flexible set-up. Also worth noting, there's a sheet of black paper under the screen frame to minimize reflected light, and a black cloth along the back to block light coming in under the door.

The screen is placed on the black paper, fabric side up; the film positive is placed on top of the fabric, and a sheet of glass is placed on top of that to ensure good contact; and then the light is turned on for six minutes. You can just about see the green light-sensitive emulsion on the yellow screen fabric. For the larger version of the tree I got a film positive made from my jpeg at Print on Demand on Tragarete Road.

Beginnings No. 1 final stage

. . . except the series isn't called "Beginnings" any more, it's not even "Remembered Landscapes". This is the final version of the first piece with the tree screenprinted on. I guess there's some explaining to do, and I'll do it in a few days. In the meantime I'm still recovering, and the last few days I've been doing a massive studio clean-up. Before and after photos coming soon!

Related posts:
Series overview
Beginnings 1 stage 4
Stage 3
Stage 2
Stage 1
Choosing a theme

Finding the best exposure time

Light-sensitive emulsion, also known as photo-emulsion, is wonderful for making certain kinds of stencils in screenprinting. In particular, it's useful for reproducing detailed ink drawings with fine delicate lines which would be difficult to do any other way. On the down side, timing the exposure correctly is tricky. If the time is too short the image will wash out too much. If it's too long, the image may take forever to wash out and parts may not wash out at all. So, getting the timing right is of the essence.

There's no hard and fast rule because every set-up is slightly different. The one good rule is to do a series of timed exposures to establish the best time for one's specific set of variables.

My variables are: A 150-watt flood lamp; distance from lamp to screen, 17 inches; diazo photo emulsion on the fabric side only (underside). After doing a series of test exposures (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 minutes) the optimum time turned out to be 5 minutes. This is an amazingly useful thing to know. I had been using much longer times and was having a terrible job washing the emulsion out.

First reasonable screenprint

It's taken a few months but I've finally got a reasonable silkscreen print, in fact four of them. I made the stencil with drawing fluid and screen filler and printed the image onto Grumbacher pastel paper which took the acrylic ink very well.


Each of the sheets of paper measures 18 x 12" and is a different colour. I hand-coloured one with metallic inks (below).

The old screen, a trial run

The screen has been exposed, only 12 minutes, and the picture shows the "open" screen after washing out the image. It looks better than the last time but it's still not great. I decided to do a trial run anyway to see what other issues might crop up.

The proofs drying on a line. 

Pulling the proofs was one of the messiest things I've ever done in my studio, it would be better somewhere outside the house like under the eaves. The proofs didn't turn out all that well, as expected, and unfortunately the screen fabric got a small tear during overzealous clean up.  It will last for another short run or two and then I'll replace the fabric. Other than that -- it was terrific to be pulling prints and I like the potential that this technique has for future work.

.

Screen print, a failed attempt

My first attempt to make a screen print has failed.

The image, a detailed drawing of a tree, was ideal for a photo stencil, so yesterday I prepared the screen with photo emulsion and left it in the dark to dry. Today I set up the light -- a 150-watt flood lamp attached to a piece of 3 x 1" board -- and gave the screen an exposure of 24 minutes.


Sad to say, the unexposed parts of the screen (the drawing) failed to "open" properly afterwards and in the end I had to abandon it and wash out the whole screen, which was pretty difficult to do. It took over an hour of scrubbing and washing with chemicals.

I think the exposure time was too long. I will try again with a shorter exposure and possibly raise the lamp a couple of inches.

I can't complain, having skipped the step in the reference book* which recommends doing a series of timed test exposures.

*Screen Printing, Contemporary Methods and Materials by Frances and Norman Lassiter, 1978, Hunt Manufacturing, Philadelphia

The old screen, part 2

It's taken a while but finally, after some unforeseen delays, I got replacement hinges for the old screen. I put them on last night and here are two pictures. The first one shows the newly-installed hinges, and the second shows the screen propped up, as it will be in use, e.g. when changing the paper. Ideally it would have a swing-arm on the right (far) side to prop it up in between prints, but for now there's a clothes peg holding it up.





In the first picture you can just about see the removable pins in the hinges, both facing away from the centre. They're rather stiff, hope they'll get easier to remove and replace over time. Or maybe I should oil them.

It's easy to buy ready-made screens at some art suppliers, so why go to such lengths to reclaim this old one? I don't quite know myself actually. Casting around for reasons I can see that it revives a connection with the past and gives me a means of making different kinds of marks for very little outlay. Or, as an incurable hoarder, is it rather the satisfaction of being able to say that something came in handy after all? (Hoarders live for such moments.)

But I must produce something with it before I can say that.

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An old screen

Over the past few days I've been reclaiming an old screen-printing screen. It's at least twenty years old, maybe twenty-five, a remnant of a course I attended many years ago in Arima. I hate throwing things out and that's why I still have this strange object.

I can't remember the name of the person who taught the course but she did a great job, teaching all the basic methods and processes including photo stencils. The course occupied one whole day each week over six weeks.

We made our own screens on the first day. I think our tutor must have supplied the materials, they are of such good quality and have held up so well. The frame and baseboard are perfectly sound showing no signs of warping or rotting despite years of neglect. The screen itself appears to be in good shape apart from ghost images. I've washed it and dried it and the mesh is taut and looks intact. The hinges were rusty and a pin was missing, so I removed them and will attach new ones next week. Then, with a squeegee and some ink, all I will need is one or two ideas. I'll post the first presentable results here (note the qualifier -- "presentable").