Jackson Pollock dripped and flicked his paint on the ground. Yayoi Kusama speckled her canvas with intentional marks. Mark Rothko bled his paints and pigments into an unprimed duck canvas. Andy Warhol actually did what you’re going to do. Screenprint. Creating your own art is one of the best feelings, but being able to wear something you designed and printed is one of the proudest.

There are a few different printing techniques and each involving a different screen preparation process and achieves a unique final product. There are three methods to screen printing: the paper cut stencil method uses a paper stencil taped to your frame to create the print, the drawing fluid method allows you to paint onto your screen print frame to create your design, and the most popular is the photo emulsion method that uses a transparent film and a chemical reaction to create your screen. Below is a step by step to the most popular way to get detailed and clean custom screen prints.

Photo Emulsion Method

You’ll Need: 

Screen Frame 

A shirt or other fabric to print onto

Speedball Diazo Photo Emulsion

Speedball Sensitizer

Speedball Photo Emulsion Remover

Screen printing Squeegee

Screen printing fabric ink

A piece of glass that fits inside the frame

1. Mixing the emulsion.

Start by filling the bottle of sensitizer up halfway with water then close the bottle and shake it really well. Now open your bottle of photo emulsion—it will be a bright blue color. Pour the bottle of sensitizer into the bottle of photo emulsion and mix them with a wooden mixing stick until fully incorporated. This process should turn the photo emulsion green. If all of the sensitizers did not mix into the emulsion, add a little more water, shake, and repeat. 

      2. Coating the screen.

This is a tricky and important part. You want to coat the screen completely with emulsion without over saturating it—it should not drip. Lay your screen over a sink or tub and pour a horizontal bead of emulsion along the flat side on one end of the frame. Place your squeegee at about a 45-degree angle behind the emulsion and pull it across the screen, coating it as you pull. Go back over the side to make sure you coat the entire back of the screen, pulling off any extra emulsion (you can save this in your bottle). 

       3. Drying the screen.

When your emulsion dries it becomes light-sensitive and needs to be kept in a dark place. You can keep it in a drawer, a closet, a cupboard--anywhere dark. Lay your screen horizontally in a dark place for at least 4 hours. If you need to move your screen, use a black trash bag, covering the screen completely. You can keep it for up to 1-2 weeks in a dark place if you don’t plan on using it right away. 

       4. Creating your art.

In order to prepare your designs for screening using photo emulsion, you need to print it onto a transparency sheet. You can do this by using a photo illustrating software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, MS Paint--whatever you fancy and print it onto transparency paper (Most print and copy centers can do this.), or you can draw and paint directly onto a transparent sheet. Make sure to only use black ink or paint when creating your design; the black bits will be in color on your final print.

       5. Exposing your image.

Before exposing your screen to light, place your transparency inside of the screen frame, design side down. You need to make sure the ink or paint side is touching the mesh so light does not get through. Place a piece of plexiglass or glass on top of that; if you do not have a piece of glass you can tape it down or temporarily glue it. Place a black sheet of paper (or any black material as long as it is not glossy or reflective) on a flat surface and then your screen on top of that. The amount of time it will take to expose your image will depend on your light source. The brighter the light, the shorter it will take to expose. In direct sunlight, any sized screen will take approximately 45 seconds to expose. If using a lamp, secure it above your screen approximately the distance of the diagonal of the screen. You can find instructions on specific exposures with lamps on the packaging of screen printing kits as well as online sources.

         6. Printing.

Wash out your screen in the sink or outside until the green emulsion is removed from the design and pat it dry. If too much washes out then your exposure was not long enough, but if too little washes out, gently scrub it. Place your screen on top of your printing surface, frame side up and put a few tablespoons of ink on your screen on the far side from you. Use your squeegee to pull from behind the ink at a 60-degree angle toward you. Lift your screen up and push your ink back to re-ink your screen, this is a flood stroke. You can do a few prints with the ink you have on there. Remember to always do a test print. Do not let the ink dry on the screen; most can be washed out in the sink because they are water-based. 

Congratulations! You have made your first screenprint! You can get creative and make some really amazing designs. P.S. If you want to make your inks transparent and layer them, you can use an ink extender mixed in with your colors. And if you want to make a print with multiple colors, use a different screen per color. Happy printing, artists!