Screen-printing weekend at Badger Press

About a month ago now I spent the weekend at Badger Press in Bishop’s Waltham for a course on screen-printing. Below is a brief overview of the course, the facilities and my own experiences of being squeegee-in-hand for the first time.

The Course

The course itself was a special 2-day workshop that run over the weekend of the 25th & 26th of September. The cost was £80 and that included all materials aside from paper-costs (of which mine amounted to about £2 extra). The course was run by the ever-helpful and friendly Stephan who is also an lecturer on Art at Fareham College. If you wish to know about any further courses being held at the Badger Press, check out their website at badgerpress.org.

What is screen-printing?

In simple terms, screen-printing is a method of printing that involves the passing of ink or paint through a mesh or ‘screen’ which is tightly stretched over a frame. A screen acts as a stencil as designs can be ‘burnt’ into the screen using a combination of photo-sensitive emulsion and an electric UV light bed. The screens are then laid over the material which is to be printed on, such as paper and fabric, and ink is pushed through the screen using a squeegee. Designs with multiple colours can be achieved by overlaying different screens with different stencils and pushing separate colours through each one.

Why screen-printing?

The most notable recognisable examples of screen-printing in popular culture are probably the famous Marilyn Monroe images created by Andy Warhol in 1962. Nowadays however, screen-printing is used for all manner of printed items such as posters, t-shirts, CD labels and art prints. However, to my knowledge, there has been a particular resurgence in screen-printing over recent years due to the popularity of illustrative gig posters like those created by agencies such as The Small Stakes and Little Jacket.

My own interest in screen-printing comes from a more commercial rather than artistic perspective. Recently I have seen a rise in popularity of typographical screen-prints in local commercial galleries such as Wallspace and the Southsea Gallery. Both these shops sell similar typographical prints from suppliers such as the Keep Calm Gallery. My intention over the next few weeks and months whenever I have a bit of spare time is to try and create a selection of similar prints that I can either then sell online or via the shops I have mentioned above. Yes, I’m sure it won’t exactly make me rich but it could give me a bit of extra pocket money for those expensive and desirable Mac peripharals that Apple keep releasing.

The Original Idea

Having already used it for my website for Flint & Tinder, I decided that for my first attempt at screenprinting I would use a quote from the inspirational philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Below is a jpeg of what I originally hoped to recreate in print:

Day 1

After an eventful journey stuck behind tractors and horse-drawn carts, I arrived at Badger Press to be immediately offered a cup of tea by Stephan. “This is my kind-of-place!” I thought, however barely a sip had passed my lips before Stephan was up teaching us our first lesson of the weekend; how to prepare the screens for our designs. This is a seemingly simple process that involves carefully applying thin layer of photo-emulsion to the screen using a scoop cutter. I say simple because that’s how Stephan made it look anyway. After his demonstration, the 5 other attendees and I each had a go to varying degrees of success. Thankfully no-one had to start again, but I think we all realised that the art of ‘dis-engaging’ is a fine one indeed.

Once the screens were set up and placed in the drying cupboard, Stephan took the opportunity to slow things down a touch and discuss a bit more about his plans for the weekend and what he hoped we’d gain from the course. He also took the opportunity to introduce the attendees to each other a bit more and encourage discussion amongst ourselves about the pre-prepared work we had brought in. At this point, it was interesting to see how each of us had approached screen-printing with different source materials: my work was purely digital, yet others had brought in illustrations, sketches and photographs to use. Stephan was very keen for us to experiment over the weekend which I think was really inspiring as some of the best pieces I made I would never have thought of going otherwise, but more about that later. Once everyone had become better acquinted Stephan discussed with each student the best method to use to get their source materials onto the screens ready for printing. For me, that was to print my Jean Paul Sartre quote directly onto acetate using the studios lovely new iMac and epson printer.

For the next part of the day, Stephan then demonstrated how to expose our source material (in my case the acetate) onto our dried screens. In order to do this, we had to take it in turns to overlay our material onto the screen and then place both objects into a large vacuum sealed exposure bed. This process allows the design that was printed onto the acetate to be transferred onto the screen and allow it be be washed away there-by creating a stencil on the mesh which ink can be pushed through. Below is a photo of my screen at the end of this process:

As you can see, the green area is the exposed photo-emulsion and the yellow area is the cleaned mesh. Because I wanted pure block colours, my original quote was printed in pure black onto the acetate. If I had used a grey colour instead then some of the area underneath my design would have been exposed meaning less emulsion could have been washed away from the screen. Using the scale between full black and full transparency is how gradients and photographs can be printed, but I’m afraid I won’t get into that in this particular post.

Once everyone’s screens were washed down and dried for a second time, Stephan then went on to demonstrate firstly how to set up a workstation and then how to apply and print ink through our screens. As my initial thoughts for my design consisted of my quote printed onto a large area of block colour, my first foray into screen-printing consisted of printing the said blocks onto various sheets of paper ready for the quote to be overlaid the next day. Whilst one would presume that just printing large blocks of colour would a relatively simple affair, I have to admit that my result were throughly inconsistent. You see, there is a definite knack to screen-printing and it is a lot harder than you think. Aside from making sure I used a steady motion and ‘dis-engaged’ properly, the issue I had problems with the most was finding the right amount of ink to use. Luckily Stephan was on hand to assure me that, like all things worth doing, perfection would come with practice.

After I felt I had squandered enough ink and paper for the day and went through the process of cleaning up with the other attendees, I had just enough time in the session to discuss with Stephan my aims for the second day and where he thought I could improve on what I’d done. I am absolutely delighted to have this talk with Stephan as he was really keen for me to experiment with some ‘analogue’ methods as well as the digital process I had already started. His suggestion was to maybe try a process that used paper stencils on the underside of the screen either an abstract fashion or with more purpose providing if I could think of a suitable idea. With that in mind, I left my first day at Badger Press with a spring in my step and eager to get home and devise what I could do the next day.

Day 2

Having thought about Stephan’s words that evening I decided to add a stencil of Jean Paul Sartre behind the quote. Whilst I originally I thought of using a profile shot, whilst searching through Google I found an image of him walking alone through the desert which I thought suited the quote and the underlying existentialist quote perfectly. As a result I updated my proposed design to look like this:

Now I actually really like that as it is and as a result, was considering creating another acetate print of the figure and trying to recreate the jpeg as precisely as possible. However, as I wanted to keep my options open I also decided to create a paper stencil as well. This was just as well because after talking to Stephan in the morning he convinced me to experiment with the paper stencil and recreate the shadows by tearing strips out of newsprint by laying them over the top of the paper to be printed on. In hindsight now, doing this was probably the best decision I made all weekend as the silhouettes came out better than I thought and definitely added something more to my designs that what I had originally intended. For that I have to thank Stephan.

After I had experimented in the morning with the paper stencils, I spent the rest of the afternoon finally printing the quote onto my now quite numerous prints. Up until this point I was still struggling to get consistent results but after watching Stephan demonstrate the technique one more time, something clicked. Much to my annoyance and delight for the rest of day I was churning out neat and crisp prints one after the after. Now I don’t doubt for one moment that the next time I try my hand at screen-printing I’ll be back at step 1 again, but it’s nice to know that getting great results isn’t out of my reach.

Below is a selection of images that show just how much work I managed to produce over the duration of the weekend. Looking back now, I wish I had done a few more prints on the thicker cartridge paper, but overall I’m really pleased with what I produced. I’m currently undecided as to which print I should frame and put above my desk for inspiration, so if any one has any suggestions let me know.

Conclusion

I really can’t recommend and thank both Stephan and the Badger Press enough. I had a great weekend, learning loads about screen-printing and I’m fully aware I have really only touched the tip of the iceberg. As a result I’m itching to get back into the studio with some new designs. Thankfully because I went on the course, I can now rent out a bed at the studio for a really reasonable amount whenever I like. Unfortunately it’s not guaranteed that Stephan will be there to help, but hopefully I’ll be able to go down with one of the other guys who attended the course at the same time. After all creativity loves company.

If you’re interested in any of the techniques I’ve written about, then please check out the Badger Press website for more information on both weekend and evening courses being run this Autumn.

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