This is what I’ve been up to today! In addition to getting ready for the baby (38 weeks 5 days pregnant.. so he could come any day now!) and finishing off uni work (like my dissertation that I handed in on Monday), I’ve also been doing this! 

Two other girls and I are currently screen printing lining for the House of Sunny for their collection to be shown in London Fashion week in September! Unfortunately the facilities at uni aren’t the best for mass production… but we’re getting there… one meter at the time. 

I decided to take some pictures today to show the process of making up a screen, as we needed to make a new one!

1. securely place the screen against a wall, fill screen printing emulsion in a scoop coater and apply a thin even layer on the silk screen. 

2. Put screen to dry in a dark place (light will expose and harden the emulsion), scrape any left over emulsion back in it’s container (that stuff is expensive!) and wash the coater. 

3+4 Place tracing paper with the image (in black) you want to screen print on the glass surface in the exposing unit, and place the screen on top. You can also use paper, but it can be easier to get a good result with tracing paper.

Close the lid, turn on the vacuum, set the time (we had it for 54 seconds) and push “start”! The UV light will harden the emulsion, except in the areas that are black, as the light will not pass through. (Cut outs in thick paper or card, tape and other things can be used to block the light out as well, for different types of motifs)

5. Once the screen is exposed you rinse it. The emulsion that was covered by black will wash off quite easily, as long as this is done right after the screen is exposed. If you leave the screen out for too long the emulsion will harden and you won’t be able to get a clear, crisp image.

6. After you’ve held the screen up to the light to check that there’s no emulsion left overs in your motifs you can put the screen to dry. Once it’s dry it can be usefull to “post harden” the screen. Basically, you just expose it again for 54 sec or 100, or whatever you want really… to make sure the emulsion is properly hardened. Post hardening it means that you can use it over and over a lot more, before the process of washing the ink off the screen every time you’ve used it starts wearing off the emulsion. 

I’ll get some pictures of how to do the actual screen printing soon, so “stay tuned” 😉

Oh, and the girls in the pictures are Hannah and Bernice, also students at the University of Portsmouth.

All images are mine, the motif on the screen belongs to House of Sunny