Got my screen print on in a big way! Spent yesturday morning at Vernon St with the print room alllllllll to myself for most of it, it was heaven. Roger helped me with my post-it printing, which turned out to be a lot more tricky than first anticipated. Even though the software made sure that the colour separations were perfectly aligned when I printed them out to scale, the fact that printing involves some degree of heat means that there will always be a slight case of warping. Brilliant. To get round this I (and by 'I' do mean Roger) had to tape the sheet with the background positives down to the light box, cut the drawing positives into 3 separate pieces, align each one individually then re-stick the 3 back together as one whole sheet. Then I could expose them. HELLO another problem. Because I'd printed my positives onto tracing paper to save costs on such a large print out, I could only expose my screens for 7 light units otherwise I'd lose my image to overexposure. Fantastic. So once I'd exposed them both for 7, gently rinsed them both down and left them both to dry I had to post-harden them for a further 100 light units to try and muster some longevity. A painfully tedious process. It's a good job I only wanted to print a few out because after about 5 runs the emulsion did actually start to degrade, and tape can only salvage so much.
I also got to experiment with some canaletto paper - sweet as a cashew nut. It cost £1.80 per sheet but SHIT ME, THAT'S UNPRECEDENTED SMOOTHNESS! Printed like a dream, no word of a lie.
Here's a nice picture of my pretties, the blue shows up much better in real life, the flash on my camera did it no favors I'm afraid. It's not perfectly aligned but the paleness of the background makes it a lot less noticeable. Most importantly I've identified the problems and understand how to ensure they don't happen again, boom.
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