Printing Work!

So then, Last week we had to begin another three weeks of induction work. Last week, if you saw the update, then we had to take part in a clay and plaster workshop that quite frankly took a long time to finish off.

This week, we gladly got to work on printing; but we only actually got around to doing one form of printing because we had to go to Oxford... yes, Oxford, I should of updated about that like last Wednesday, but I was exhausted and never got round to actually doing it. so that`ll be coming soon.


We only managed to get round to making some screen prints, a very basic form of printing that involves one screen with the same image on it; you repeatedly drag a mixture of paint and binder through the screen and it then prints on to the paper or material underneath.

You coat a silk screen (what they used to be called but apparently the ones at university are made out of cotton), with printing emulsion. The emulsion is this horrible thick gloopy stuff that you coat the screen in, it also doesn`t feel nice when you get it on your hands.

After the screen has been coated, we use this weird heated cupboard that dries everything a lot quicker for us. You leave it in there and start this whole process when you have an image, don`t ever leave it in there when you aren`t prepared to put the image on; the screen just bakes and then the emulsion that you coated on there just crumbles off.

The image then needs to be put on a UV ray box, then get the screen and place it face down onto the box; but you can`t let the screen be in the light for so long, because then it just exposes itself after a while. The machine that we have at university has to be on a setting of 130 seconds of exposure if you have your image on a piece of plain white paper, or, 30 if the image is on acetate.

Once it`s been quickly adjusted and is ready to go; you pull down the lid which is basically thick black fabric that let`s no light out of the Ray box and no light in. Ensure that it`s clamped down properly and then press the vaccum button; this just helps make sure that nothing else will obscure the picture in anyway. It`s quite fun to watch and do now, before I didn`t trust myself even touching the machine, simply because it`s that big and make some horrible noises after a while.



 The only step that you have to do after that is go through to the blaster rooms, and blast off the emulsion that you put on the screen; the only parts that should come off are, the areas where your image has come through when you exposed the screen to it. Just keep on spraying until you feel like it`s all come through. You can then just keep on printing as many times as you want, with as many different colours as you want. To remove the screen you have to use a special mix of chemicals that eat away at the emulsion on the screen; I can`t remember the exact name for the chemicals, but you simply leave it on for a few minutes and then use a proper jet washer to blast off the rest of it. If you`ve mixed the right amount of chemicals or if you`ve left it on long enough, then it`ll come off really easily with some blasting.



If you remember, a while ago I began to use a horrible old Blackberry phone with ridiculously small buttons; this was one of the images that I kept on printing, and was the first image that I`ve put on screen at university. I did put another one on eventually, but that one was used for mainly colour experimentation.

I began with some simple prints, Black with some blobs of purples and blues; which blended in nicely wit the black. after that, I worked on some coloured prints, but then printed black back over the top of them; This made the prints look like they where echoing, like the top layer was actually the shadow. Then a lot of the others where over laps of Cyan, Blue and Yellow paints; the exact colours which are used to create images on phones and newspapers.


This whole process was really fun, and everything at Derby University to do with printing is free to use to any students; as long as they`ve had the proper inductions for the machines in there.

There`s clamps to keep the screens in place, so you can lift up the screen, change the paper and keep on printing! Some of them are now on Deviantart, I won`t be putting them all on facebook, I usually just upload photography on there now.

Keep checking for more updates!

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