For the fourth “visit” for Freedom House, I worked on screenprinting my prints for the final project. I have been able to get a lot done up until now, even being able to print over spring break to get ahead. I had a lot of fun bringing along a friend of mine to assist me in screenprinting the first layer and exposing the screens. While he was new to this process, I was happy to have assistance in printing, exposing the screens and cleaning. Bringing along my friend ultimately helped to make the process go by much faster. I think that this would be a great idea in the future when I continue to screenprint outside of class.
While I have successfully printed the first layers (as there will be a variant edition), I have had trouble two separate days trying to print with the black ink, which is my main image. It seems like the ink is too old. Although I thought this issue may have been due to my image being too complex (since I used a lot of small halftones), the ink is not able to even go through continuous exposed areas of the screen without eventually clogging. I tried using a chemical retarder in the ink in order for it to not clog up as much, but that didn’t do anything.
My plan going forward is to troubleshoot printing with the black ink with Katie during class tomorrow. With that in mind, I hope to finish all of the prints before the end of the day tomorrow as well as have them all signed and numbered!
