Rainy day and printmaking

Rainy days are great for taking silhouette like photos that can be used to create stencils for screen printing.

rainy day tree for screen print inspiration

Today I stopped an took a few photos of this tree. I tried to capture mostly tree and sky so that there was a high contrast of black and white with out much distraction.

high contrast tree for printmaking

Then I edited it in photo shape to create a strong black and white image. I reduce it in size on the copy machine and printed a transparency.

Ezscreen of tree for printing on paper and fabric

Then I burned this emulsion based screen. The screen material is made by EZscreenprint. I was pleasantly surprised. The tree was quite delicate and complex. I was not sure how much of the detail would be lost in the creation of the screen. But it worked!

screen print tote bags

I tested out the tree and printed it on a cotton tote bag, a t-shirt, and some painted papers.

screen print t shirts with ezscreens

These papers can be trimmed and made into cards or small mixed media prints, or added to some artist’s books.

screen printing paper for mixed media printmaking

If you would like to explore screen printing, then join us in this session of Pulling Screen Prints, the online printmaking class. Read the details on the printmaking workshop page and register today. Class starts soon.