After watching a tra-zillon YouTube videos and reading a ri-dang-diculous number of tutorials (including this awesome one here by another Etsy mama), I decided to try my hand at it. No luck yet.
Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? Burn time too long? Emulsion not thick enough? Transparency not opaque enough?
I am so eager to figure this out despite the fact that I may have accidently burned my eyes out this evening.
Here are pics of my first and second attempts. Hit me with your best shot.
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Wish I could help, but I have NO clue! Cute idea though...keep at it! :) xo
ReplyDeleteI imagine the emulsion layer isn't thick enough, but I could be wrong...I need to try the emulsion method. I was using Mod Podge, and was painting the Mod Podge on by hand. I had a few turn out great that way but I found out the very first time I tried it that I needed to make the layer of Mod Podge thick enough that there were no gaps whatsoever in the fabric where I didn't want ink to go. That meant a pretty liberal layer of Mod Podge. BTW, this is Joel Daniels. I love your onesies. I have ideas for a bunches o onesies for our lil boy that I want to screen print, so I'll have to get used to the emulsion technique.
ReplyDeletealso, what did you use to print on the transparency?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joel Dareallylonglastnameiels. I think you're right about the emulsion layer. The emulsion turned out pretty thin, but it was so hard to mix since I was mixing it in the dark! I'm going to try to put two layers of emulsion and I'm going to try to raise the light up a bit.
ReplyDeleteI've tried ModPodge in the past as well but that takes for. E. Va.
I printed the transparency out at Office Max. I asked them to use only black ink.
My guess is that you may have overexposed the screen to light too long. The best tutorial I've ever come across is here;
ReplyDeletehttp://lilblueboo.blogspot.com/2009/12/screen-printing-101-photo-emulsion.html
I love her blog too!
Thanks, Kathleen! That tutorial is super helpful. I've been trying to burn the screens indoors with a 250 watt lightbulb, but I think I'm going to try it outdoors so I can see the emulsion harden (like the lilblueboo tutorial mentions). I'll let you know how it goes!
ReplyDeleteI also think your problem is overexposure, and not that the emulsion is too thin. As far as I can tell from the pics, your problem is that the emulsion didn't wash out where you wanted it to. I had to experiment a lot, and found that my exposure times were actually a lot less then any posted in charts! Also make sure you are rinsing with cool water (and not getting the light source too close to the screen) as heat will also set your emulsion. Good luck! Oh, and did you print 2 transparencies and double them up? That works really well for me to block out as much light as possible!
ReplyDelete