Line drawings are easily converted to a small screen for printing with a Thermofax Machine.

The machine is about $1200. and a roll of screen is about $200, but there are many folks who will create screens for you and sell screens online and in Etsy shops. I would suggest getting a few screens and trying out the process before you go and buy a machine.

Screen printing is a great process if you want to print many of the same image consistently. I realized that I don’t do that type of printing very often. I am more of a one of a kind, monotype printmaker. But I do love the type of line image that is possible with a thermofax screen print.

As I created this screen I thought about varying the thickness of the line to create a screen that would print some delicate lines and some bolder lines.

Once you get set up it is pretty quick to print up a whole piece of cloth. Use nice fresh ink and a sponge or squeegee to gently “push” the ink through the holes on the screen.

Check out how easy it is to get started with thermofax printing in this blog post.

So I took my little block print from yesterday and printed it several times in black ink on paper. I played with the layout and possible designs.

I kept the designs small, because thermofax screens are easier for me to print if the are small. I can hold and move all the tools to make an overall print.

I made about 4 different screens and just had to test them all, the whole orange, 1/2 slice and some tumbling 1/2 slices. Some of the screens burned more successfully than the others. I am never quite sure why.

I warmed up the machine and ran the photocopy through with the emulsion coated mesh screen. Usually is comes out ever so slightly stuck to the screen. This time they were not so stuck. The 1/2 slice looked okay, but when I got to printing it, the impression was somewhat spotty.

I don’t use the machine enough to be able to really read the the screen. It is hard for me to tell if the emulsion has been “burned” enough. Of course there are other factors, ink, paper, fabric and type of squeegee that all affect the quality of the impression.

So I played with printing on several different types of fabric and paper to see if that was affecting my impression. It printed beautifully on this scrap piece of linen. Notice the blue block printed mark. I think this is a great example of the difference between the type of mark that is possible with soft carved block prints and thermofax screen prints.

The more I print, the more I learn. I like it that way. Have you tried screen printing with simple paper stencils? Check out the free tutorial.