Fabric Screen Printing - T Shirts

Fabric Screen Printing

For Halloween me and and my buddy Shelly wanted to learn to print on to t shirts, mainly to save on money but also to try something new! We never had any inductions in how to screen print onto fabric but we thought we could probably work it out by asking other people in the print room.

Working it out

I asked my old flat mate Emily, a printed textiles student, to help us with exposing the screen and sorting out the inks. However, she could only get us so far as it seems none of printed textiles know how to print on to a t shirt, they normally work with one sheet of fabric. Once we had prepped our screen we asked Mike (the print room technician) how we could do what we wanted. He was very helpful and advised us on how to pin the t shirt and to put newsprint in between the layers so the ink doesn't seep through. The rest was pretty much the same as printing on to paper!

Finishing touches

To make sure we could actually wash our tops after we printed them, Mike told us to iron each one with newsprint for 5 minutes. This meant that the ink was fully embedded into the material. I am actually incredibly surprised that it actually worked, it took us a while to know what we were doing but I am so happy it paid off. I am excited to try this process again using my own imagery.

Collaborative Workshop - Banana Magnet

This was such a crazy weird day!

#sluglife

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/524669425317764318/

Collaboration

Working with a variety of students from Graphic Design and Animation as well as illustration made a nice change, it almost felt like being back at school a little bit. I also really enjoyed the process of having to create something as a team in so little time, although I don't think it went to plan in the end!

The time limit was a bit stressful but a good exercise in delegation and splitting a work load between a group of people. I almost wish we had more time to get to know the people from the other courses as it all felt a bit rushed. Hopefully we will get more opportunities to work together in future projects, I am looking forward to collaborating for responsive. Our idea was based around a slug theme park and we came up with the slogan 'slug-life'. I had never worked from such a random idea before but the day was a lot of fun! I don't think I necessarily cared too much about the outcome of the idea, mainly because it felt so chaotic and I knew in such a short amount of time the ad probably wouldn't be conducive of all of our actual skills and qualities.

Study Task 1

Identify 5 things you have learned so far on the programme

+ Digital skills, using vectors on Adobe Illustrator and tools in Photoshop.

+ Printing, screen print, mono, etc. - Printing on fabric and paper.

+ How to work with placement of shape, cut paper, etc.

+ How to make a book on Indesign. Eg. concertina, leaflet.

+ How to make editorial images - Composition.

Identify 5 things that you want to know more about

+ How to add texture to vectors, more digital skills.

+ Hand made typography.

+ More print techniques.

+ Making moving images - GIFs

+ Creating my own websites

Identify 5 skills that you think are your strengths

+ Craftsmanship - became accustomed to using paper and shapes - detail.

+ Including a narrative within an image.

+ Roughing - the process of coming up with ideas.

+ Researching.

+ Using my sketchbook to work through and develop my ideas.

Identify 5 things that you want to improve

+ Digital skills, learn to make images entirely digitally.

+ Using colour, experiment with using brighter, more punchy colours - not being afraid of them.

+ Using visual metaphors within my work.

+ Be more open minded to different ways of working.
+ Using more interesting compositions.

Identify 5 practitioners that demonstrate your interest in Illustration
+ Lisa Perrin - book covers.
+ Andy Singleton - paper sculptures. Beci Orpin - paper shapes. Rob Ryan - paper cut.
+ Jon Klassen - funny kid's books.
+ Dieter Braun - want to learn to use vectors & print textures.
+ Eleni Kalorkoti - shape. Laura Carlin - atmosphere & technique.

Identify 5 websites/online resources that demonstrate your areas of interest within the creative industries
+ brwnpaperbag.com - illustration blog.
+ nobrow.net - books.
+ centralillustration.com - Central Illustration Agency.
+ dutchuncle.co.uk - Illustration blog.
+ www.n8w.com - illustration blog.