Printing

The day for printing arrived. Before printing, I had decided on some colors for the ink. Starting with very basic colors, my first task was to mix a shade of blue that would complement the blue woman's shirt and that be a bit darker. The second ink was more of a rust color and would be used in the print on the grey/charcoal shirt.

This is the area and the supplies needed for printing. No, I did not need the chemistry book, but it was there anyway.

In order to prepare the ink colors, I took a spoon of each color of ink and used a brush to mix the desired colors. After I achieved the desired color, I mixed the inks, but in greater quantity, in old, glass, baby food jars. Note: a little black goes a LONG way.

The first print done was the cog. The print was beautiful and came through with a bit of a stressed look due to uneven application of pressure with the squeegee during the spreading of the ink. After the print, however, there was a comedic mishap. The excess ink (see spoons above) was being put back into the bottles. As most 7th graders know but most adults forget, a plastic spoon bends well and, when bent, is potentially a functional and able catapult. Said spoon with white ink was bent while scraping ink back into the bottle, pressure of finger removed from end of spoon and the ink launches...into hair, onto counter and floor, onto shirt. We laughed. Really. And after we stopped laughing, a sponge, toothbrush and water were used to remove spots of white ink. Tomorrow, when the heat setting will be done, the print will be the only thing set, and, as a result, any remaining white ink will wash out with future laundering.

Close-up of the print. Speedball fabric inks were used.

The second shirt. I applied the ink for this print and made sure to evenly apply pressure with the squeegee. The result is a much more even print. However, because the print was slightly larger than the folded newspaper that was between the layers of fabric (to prevent the ink from soaking through the front of the shirt to the back) there is a spot of thicker ink near the right corner (bottom of picture) of the print.

This is a detail of the print from the above T-shirt.

Printing has been fun. Tomorrow I will heat set the images and the shirts will be ready for wearing to a music festival this weekend.