I had been waiting for this workshop for a month, and when 29th September finally came, the Saturday morning seemed especially cheery. It had not been easy looking for silkscreen classes where I reside, and when I finally found one I could attend, I jumped with a big HOORAY!!!.
Though a short session (yup it's 3 hours, I'd hope it's a full day workshop so I can keep printing), I learnt 2 basic techniques with loads of hands-on:- Mono Screenprinting and using Reduction Screen Filler Stencils. For those completely new to the concept of screenprinting (yup, I was totally new a month ago as well, and watching how-to videos on youtube helps), you might want to take a quick look at screenprinting on Wikipedia before you read on.
For Mono Screenprinting, screen mono prints are using water-soluble crayons, pencils and fabric dyes drawn or painted directly onto the mesh of the screen. Once your image is completed on screen, a transparent base is used as a vehicle to transfer it onto the paper. The image can be used once or up to a few times, before the image fades out.
For the latter, a screen filler is used to create or edit images by closing areas of mesh, preventing them from printing. Each time you squeegee, you print 1 colour. If you have 3 colours on your image, you print thrice. Quite a lot of work actually, but loads of fun. Below is a simple diagram showing the filter meshes and the resulting print.
The floral image (with green background) is printed twice, once with green, and the second time with brown.
It was a great workshop at Tyler Print Institute of Singapore. Another part-time course I found was hosted at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, it spanned 10 evenings over 10 weeks in August/Sept, and focused on printing on fabrics (which I love). I am not sure if courses like these would recur. If you know of any other silkscreen printing classes coming up, please do drop me a note!
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