Screen Printing for Beginners

Not too long ago I knew next to nothing about screen printing.
That’s not true I knew the basics. Enough to sell the supplies to people when I worked in art and craft shops but I hadn’t put this knowledge to the test with some practical experiments and some solid googling of screen printing for beginners.
I’d always wanted to give screen printing a go but just never got around to it.
A few months ago, I decided to give it a go. After a lot of trial and error I worked out the process that worked best for me. Then I was on fire. Totally addicted. I just wanted to buy more and more paints and supplies. I wanted to print on everything!
I’ve put together my top 5 tips for people playing with screen printing for the first time.

Screen printing Tip #1 – Use the right ink

I would highly recommend investing in the primary colours and white.  or if you only need one colour just get the colour you need.
I thought I could save some cash by mixing a medium with my acrylics. Which you can totally do by mixing gel medium with the paint but I just couldn’t get the mix right. I spent about $20 on the the medium and wasted a whole bunch of paint and time! I gave in and bought the proper stuff (which really isn’t that pricey! Only as much as I would usually spend of acrylics anyway.) Oh what a dream! I hightly recommend speedball screen printing inks. Permaset is another great brand.

Trust me. If you’re a beginner. Don’t bother trying to mix your own. And don’t waste your time with cheap brands. Just get the good stuff and your whole screen printing experience will be much smoother.

Screen Printing Tip #2 – Getting the print on the screen

You can use photo emulsion to create your designs. Life Hacker has a great post that shows how to use emulsion to get your design on the screen.
This is a great option if you plan to use the same design multiple times. If you’re only making a few of one design I would recommend using stencils. You can of course buy pre made designs but I like to make my own with an electronic cutting machine like a Cricut or a Silhouette Portrait.
I cut them from adhesive book covering and stick them to the back of the screen.
If you make a stencil just make sure you reverse your design. The downside to using adhesive book covering is that it’s a one use thing. As soon as you want to change the colour you need a new stencil.
You can see one of my stencils one of the images below.

Screen Printing Tip #3 – Flood the screen

This is a big tip screen printing for beginners tip. Something I didn’t know about screen printing is that you need to flood the screen. I had no idea, and I couldn’t work out why my prints weren’t turning out. I did some googling and I found this video.

Flooding the screen is where you cover the screen with ink by pushing the ink with the squeegee.

Screen Printing Tip #4 –  Allow enough “off contact”

Another thing I didn’t know about is “off contact” and I found out how important this is the hard way.
Off contact is the space between the bottom of the screen and the material you’re printing on. This is super important.
This video explains off contact pretty well.

Screen Printing Tip #5 – Use a guide

If you’re printing multiples of something I highly recommend setting yourself up a guide.
I did this by taping up lines on my desk around the piece I wanted to print. I then placed the screen over the substrate lining it up to where I want the print to go. I then taped lines on the screen that lined up with the tape on my desk. This way when I swapped out the printed piece for a new one I was able to easily line up the print.

You can see my taping in this photo. It made printing multiples so much easier.
There are of course more advanced methods you can use for this but if you’re just starting out this works beautifully. 🙂
Here’s some of the books I printed using this method…

Love them. So happy with the end result.

There you have it. Those are my top tips for screen printing for beginners. Do you have any other tips to share? Pop them in the comments below. 🙂

Like screen printing? Check out this interview with Deborah Devaal Designs