Today's lesson - Silk Screening

Hi Everyone,

We were honoured to have our very own Janice V teach us how to silk screen today. She did a wonderful job and thanks to her generosity with the supplies we all came away with screens that we liked and can re-use. This first photo shows the materials that are used. Essentially a black and white image is copied onto a transparency. This is then placed over the light sensitive undeveloped screen, covered in a dark bag, and then taken into the sun. Stand facing the sun for half a minute or so and then bring the kit back into the room, plunk in water for 10 minutes, scrub away whatever wants to come off, and presto - a wonderful silk screen!

Janice is in love with inro boxes and brought along several of her samples that she's embellished with silk screening. These, according to her (and only her) are "not very good". The rest of us think otherwise.




We all spent our 30 seconds out in the sun waiting for the plates to be exposed. Then we set the screens and dried them. Once they were completed we were able to use them to squeegee paint onto clay. Here are a couple of samples after they've been painted. They show some of the differences in playing with colours and clay.


I didn't get a decent photo of Barb's amazing colour interference acrylic paint - it was neat to see what it did on different colours of clay. Everyone had a wonderful time. Janice and her excellent teaching skills demystified the process that looks intimidating on paper.


This last image really shows the impact of white balance in a digital camera. It's exactly the same piece, but the camera settings on the first one were true and were taken only after I noticed that the photo on the right made the clay look really blue. For those that are never satisfied with their colours in the digital cameras (particularly for indoor shots), I'd highly recommend a camera that allows for changing the white balance.

You can buy the StencilPro kits at http://www.cbridge.com/. Janice doesn't recommend the high resolution screens.

Next month's class is from Donna Kato's surface techniques. It'll be taught by Barb B. Materials list and other information to follow.

Cheers,

Sandy