Independent Printing

At first I was really set on screen printing and really wanted to try that as a new material because I had seen a bunch of really cool screenprints and I know they can be reproduced really easily. I thought it would be a really cool medium to explore. With the warm weather approaching I was thinking about the ocean and so I wanted a design that was somewhat nautical, I had a couple ideas, with the octopus and fish both as contenders. I started with the fish design because it was not only cute but seemed like it would fit well on the back of a T-shirt which is where I planned to print on. When I changed to black printing I decided I needed a change of design also so I switched to the other design I had sketched which was the octopus. It was also slightly more complicated than the fish so I felt like it would be better now that I was working with a familiar material. I then printed the back and felt like the front needed something and wanted it to not be overwhelming but to connect to the octopus on the back.

I started with screen printing, but I struggled the materials I had to use for the screenprinting. I think that the conditions that had to happen for the emulsion and the curing were so specific and so I had trouble getting it just right and therefore struggled to get the print to work the way I wanted. The very first time I tried it, when adding the sensitizer I wasn't sure what it was supposed to be like so I went with it, but turns out it was really old and didn't work properly. When I tried it a second time everything worked out okay except it took a ton of work to rinse the design out after I had cured the design into the screen. This made it so that the design when printed came out pretty splotchy. When I changed to block printing I had to get used to the lino as I was used to using the more soft rubber stuff. I ended up using screen printing ink on the block print because block printing ink is water soluble and so would not have worked on clothing. 

I started by screen printing and trying to figure out how to use the materials since I'd never used most of the materials that were needed. I struggled to use the emulsion because I didn't have a light safe environment and so it didn't cure properly. As well as I struggled with timing beause I think I let the emulsion sit for too long and so it just washed off. So I tried prepping the screen several times an failed multiple times. After almost an hour of rinsing and and having started over a couple times, I got really frustrated and decided to block print. I started printing by sketching my design on the linoleum then mapping out some positive and negative space. I then carved it out which took me a really long time, and while I was carving I got nervous that the way I had curled the tenticles was weird but turns out when I printed it it came out okay. I started with printing on paper and then went on to shirts which were successful as several people wanted to buy them.