My Screenprinting Pre-press Process
Earlier this year, around the time I decided to stop my Weekly Print site, I was preparing to cover my screenprinting pre-press method but never got a chance to. It’s a factor of my print process that I’ve wanted to share ever since, so how about today? The print is for the upcoming Artcrank PDX poster show, a bicycle-themed poster show.
Most of my prints, and other pieces, start as really quick thumbnails. I just had this concept of a SharkBike in my head with which to build. I’m also throwing around some ideas for what I wanted the lettering to say; I was trying to find some combination of sharks and bikes that seemed to make sense. I’m also starting to throw around color combo ideas.
A sketchbook is not always available when inspiration strikes, so I had to write this idea down on my internet bill envelope, which really confused my roommate when she found it on the kitchen table.
“Don’t” turned into “Never,” which I thought sounded a bit more dynamic. Also wrote down some more color ideas and final dimensions, as well as things like whether or not I should use halftones or a splattered effect in certain parts of the print.
This is the scan of my linework, actually slightly smaller than the poster itself. As you can see, I decided to draw a full front wheel, instead of looking more like a gaping shark’s mouth like I drew in the sketches. I penciled it like that, but decided the full wheel looked better.
I did in fact use a homemade ink splatter technique, scanned in, and turned into water splashing around the SharkBike.
Here’s my working file for the print. Usually, in a working file, I try to use as many layers as I need, so I can take out and add visual elements easily. This one is pretty simple though.
When I’m happy with the working file, I save a copy as my final print copy and start combining all the many layers of the working file down to only one layer per color in the final print, in this case three. I could probably go WAY in depth into this step of the process, but it’s one of those things that I’ve done so many times now that it’s second nature and I didn’t think to record the process as I was going.
The red and blue layers have a black color overlay (turned off for the image). I print out each layer separately, with the black overlay turned on, onto transparencies to use as my positives with which to expose my screen.
Final print later this week!
