Making Of a Silkscreen Print // Backwoods January 2007

Although most of the work involved in making a silkscreen print is creating and preparing the artwork, I will focus on the technical production of the print here.

It all started with a painting....

I started by making a vector version of this painting by tracing it in Adobe Illustrator. I cant remember how long it took cuz i did it last month... but many hours! The challenge is to break the painting down to solid shapes and limited colors that can be printed by hand one color at a time.

Here is an inkjet printout of the artwork i created in illustrator. This is my map - when all my silkscreen prints look like this or better, im there!

Before you can start the printing process, you gotta be stocked up on supplies... This is the ink i use to make my prints... Its special screen printing ink designed for the Print Gocco device i use.

I burn my screens using flash bulbs and this light housing.

Here I am burning a screen. I use a carbon positive as my source.

Pressing the first color. I try to start with a color that will act as a good basis to align the other colors. Generally i print the light colors first then work my way into darker colors. Background elements are usually printed first also.

So, I printed this color on 200 sheets of quality custom cut paper. then i did about 50 experimental prints on different color paper. It took about 90 minutes to complete this round... and i have six more to go!

On the second pass i added red and a dark brown. One of the advantages of the Gocco to traditional squeegee silkscreen printing is you can put more than one color on a screen.

3rd pass. Adding some yellow to the tree halos and filling in the green grass. The dot on the far right is only for alignment. I print the same registration marks on all colors to make sure my colors are aligned - then in the end, the reg marks are covered with black ink and disappear ;)

At this point the sun is already getting low and im only 3 passes in to a 7 pass job... hello midnight! Here the prints are drying on my outside table. I don't let ink dry in the studio if i can help it - fumes are gnarly... although of course i use a charcoal filter mask!

In order to get the most out of the ink, i surround the areas that the ink will pass through with foam to keep the ink from getting everywhere.

Here is what my screen looks like just after i add the ink.

4th pass. filling in the light part of the trees and the foreground... and the deer. My assistant had been helping me up to this point... now im on my own so each pass will take quite a bit longer.

5th Pass. Dropping in the tree shadows and the water.

6th pass. Adding the metallic gold. Shadows on the deer and the foreground.

One color left to go!

7th pass. Adding the final color is always exciting cuz you finally get to see what you have been working so hard on and get a feel for how it has turned out. Its been a 14 hour leap of faith till this point... just hoping it will all work out through that final color.

Here's the final print. I think it turned out great. Looks way better in person as the colors are not accurate in this photograph... and some of the ink is metallic and that cannot be captured with a photo.

My studio is a mess in the midnight aftermath - prints drying on every surface!

Some of the experimental prints

more prints....

I like making a few on old faded paper - dig the vibe it has.

I also dig making prints on construction paper - you get some color combos you would never dream of. Here i left out the gold pass so the purple paper could shine through.

Sometimes i print on circuitry scrap... this is just the beginning of what will ultimately be a multi layer work of art. The material is transparent so i can color it from the back .

Well, I hope you enjoyed this. Feel free to let me know if you have any comments or questions. These prints and other new ones will be for sale on my website soon... www.scottsaw.com

You can comment or ask questions on this blog if you wish at: http://www.myspace.com/scottsaw