Screenprinting Workshop: The Hive (pt 3)

This will be my last post solely devoted to The Hive, but the conference started a chain reaction of ideas -which is the point, right?- so know that future posts likely have a bit of Hive-drive in their creation! Blogging can be time-consuming (hence the sporadic posts as the semester comes to an end), but fun! What's also fun is getting out there and CREATING SOMETHING. At the conference I took part in a screenprinting workshop hosted by Nadja of Smil Siebdrucken in Berlin. Smil means 'smile' in Norwegian, and Siebdrucken is 'screenprinting' in German. Fun times!

We were able to skip the design creation and screen assembly (involves overhead sheets, sharpies, emulsion fluid and lots of tape and patience) and go right to the printing process. I think it would have been fun to make my own design, but given that they had to prepare a workshop for so many people, this was clearly the efficient way to go. I think the design she created was cool and is definitely something I will use in my own home; I really like how it says smil (smile) in the middle of it. =)

Each of us had the opportunity to pull-press the thick ink across the screen -sometimes more than once- to be sure that our image appeared clearly. Once you were done, you had to spread the ink across the screen again to keep it fresh for the next person. Then you lifted up the screen, checked your image, and proceeded to another table to heat set the ink with hair dryers. Once I came home I had to iron it to get it really hot and set, and then wash it. We printed on blank tea towels, so this was timely given that I seem to have a shortage of decent looking kitchen towels at the moment.

It was a fun workshop and had me pining for the art classes I took when I was younger. I think if I lived in a more creatively-inclined area I'd be taking courses again. This work space alone was inspiring! I plan on adding some embellishments to at least one of my towels, but I'm not sure whether I'll be able to get that done before our summer travels start later this month. There's been quite a bit going on with work-related things, so I already have a little backlog of projects I've been meaning to blog about, much less start work on!

Have you ever done any screenprinting before? What's currently on your to-create list?