Unique Hand-Painted Screen Prints

This tutorial will show you an easy way to make colorful screen prints using only one silk screen.  Screen printing can be intimidating for starters, trying to figure out color separations and registration, but this tutorial will show you an easy way to get started.  If you can color in a coloring book, you can make a colorful series of screen prints by following these simple steps.

Please note, we did this screen print in a studio, however, you can do all of these steps at home, it might just take a little longer to get set up.  For help setting up your silkscreen using lights at home, this tutorial is great (link http://www.instructables.com/id/Photo-emulsion-Screen-Printing/).  We also chose to print on canvas for this tutorial. If you also choose canvas and would like to eventually stretch that over a frame, this tutorial may be worthwhile as well (link http://www.instructables.com/id/Stretching-the-Canvas-at-TechShop/)

By Clay and Matt (Batman and Robin). 

Step 1: Step 1: Gather Materials

What you will need:

- Brainstorm some preliminary designs. We chose the mouse and cheese design in the bottom left.

After sketching:

- A flat table or desk to work on
- A large silk screen
- Squeegee 
- Silk screen ink and paint
- Photo emulsion
- Photo emulsion coater bar
- Transparency film
- High wattage light bulb or light table
- Patience and a lot of time

Comments

[water rat]

That's so cool! And not just because of the cute ratty :)

[razorwinged]

hi! i just wanted to let you know that because i like this instructable so much, i have added it to my silkscreen guide... http://www.instructables.com/id/silkscreen-printing-easy-and-cheap/

thanks for sharing your ideas!

[jessyratfink]

That's an awesome technique - the print looks so good!