So there it is, folks. The printshop. This is seen from the angle that I have most recently been working. The door in is actually on the other side of that photo. The white tables are what you print on, and those yellow-ish things to the left are people's screens. They come in a variety of flavorful sizes.
This is the piece I've currently been working on. It is my final project for Intro to Print, Paper, Book. We've been allowed to make up our own assignment for this one so I decided to just have some fun and run with it.
I decided to take some of the more hilarious or iconic WWII propaganda posters and turn them into advertisements for current television shows. Considering how demanding, insulting, and promoting of violence these old posters can be, it wasn't too hard to translate that into the world of TV. Plus, ya know, something I love.
The one on the rack there is the only one I'm printing. The others are going to remain in purely hypothetical mock-up form because I barely have enough time to get through one poster with nine layers much less three or four posters with as many or more. That one's the Supernatural themed propaganda. For Supernatural, I choose the share ride poster:
Since cars are a big deal in Supernatural, they get to have the car-themed poster. As the text to keep, I chose the "when you ride alone" line.
Anyhow, if any of you are curious what I'm doing whenever I tell you that I can't type anymore, it's this. That's my screen being propped up. You stick the block of wood under there to keep it up when you're moving paper around and prop it lower than that to flood the screen. My screen has a stencil exposed out of emulsion on it that makes sure the ink only goes through in the exact shape that I want. The shiny plastic bit there is duralar, which I print on and then tape down so that I can slide my paper underneath to see where I need to put it to make sure my placement ( registering ) is good.
Then I lower the screen and use that rubber-edged squee-gee/scraper deal to push the ink through. Usually that's through the motion of dragging it across the screen towards you.
So yeah. There's your five second badly written crash course in screenprinting.
When the printing's done, I take my screen to the back where the sinks are:
You hose 'em on down in that sink there -- effectively spraying yourself in the face with dirty paint-water more times than you care to count. Further in past that curtain-like thing is the power wash. That's when you're srs business about cleaning and want to take your stencil off as well.
Next to the sinks are the drying racks and this ominous black curtain that leads to the very very back room where the lights are safe so you can carry your unexposed emulsion'd up screen around and not have to worry. There's some crazy exposing equipment back there but I'd be a terrible person to bring my camera back there and get my shiny flash all over people's racked screens. You can just wonder about that room some more.
So, with clean-up, I put all my stuff away and lay my new prints on the rack to dry until the next layer can be done.
Tada. There it is. I just printed the grey layer you saw on the duralar earlier. Pretty exciting, huh? That Impala is really starting to take shape. After, you know, two weeks of planning and half a week of printing. Whooooo. It'd better be exciting at that point.
The other two posters are currently LOST and The 4400 themed, featuring the kept lines "loose lips" and a quote from the president about preserving the future. If you know the shows, you should easily be able to figure out which goes to which.
Peace out!
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