Goal

The goal of this assign­ment is to develop a dis­cern­ing aware­ness of the con­cep­tual, visual and tech­ni­cal attrib­utes asso­ci­ated with screen printed media.

Objective

The objec­tive of this assign­ment is to cre­ate and print an edi­tion of five prints that explore the bound­aries of the technique.

Background Reading

• Mac­Dougall, Chap­ter 1, p 9–15
• Mac­Dougall, Chap­ter 2, p 17–29

Safety Notice

• Do not look directly at the ultra­vi­o­let light
• Safety apparel required: gloves, safety glasses, ear plugs, respirator
• Safety Data Sheet (SDS) Index

Assignment

Screen print­ing more of a binary medium than many other forms, such as draw­ing with char­coal and pen­cil, or design­ing in a full color envi­ron­ment. Pru­dent and judi­cious use of flat color, as well as the approx­i­ma­tion of grad­u­a­tions through a illu­sional process, is vital to a suc­cess­ful print.

These tech­niques influ­ence the con­cep­tual and aes­thetic deci­sions with cre­at­ing effec­tive visu­als. This project explores the pri­mary tech­niques in a sin­gle color: halftone screen­ing (dots); Sto­chas­tic screen­ing (ran­dom); line art (cross hatch­ing); solids (thresh­old or posterization).

Cre­ate and print ten (10) one color 5 x 7 in. prints.

Part One

Choose one of the afore­men­tioned tonal tech­niques and find an orig­i­nal image to con­vert for print­ing. Brain­storm sev­eral con­cepts and col­lect any nec­es­sary source mate­ri­als. Pre­pare sketches and/or a dig­i­tal proof of your best con­cepts. Text or graphic ele­ments are also per­mis­si­ble, but keep siz­ing large and sim­ple enough to print effec­tively. Once approved by the instruc­tor, con­vert the image to a print­able form and pre­pare art­work for final film pos­i­tives. Upload sketches and ideas to appro­pri­ate D2L dropbox.

Dig­i­tal tem­plates are avail­able for down­load.

Part Two

Coat and dry screen using tech­niques demon­strated in class. Print or pre­pare final proof and color sep­a­ra­tions. Dig­i­tal sep­a­ra­tions must be pro­duced dur­ing assigned time peri­ods by the instruc­tor or lab personnel.

Part Three

Expose and wash out screen using tech­niques demon­strated in class. Repeat part three as often as nec­es­sary for each color.

Part Four

Print a total of ten prints using tech­niques demon­strated in class. Clean up ink and reclaim the screen in prepa­ra­tion for the next project. Repeat as part four as often as nec­es­sary for each color.

Select the best five (5) prints for an edi­tion. Label the oth­ers as artist proofs.

Warn­ing: Do not allow ink to dry in the screen. Doing so will cause per­ma­nent dam­age to the screen.
Warn­ing: Do not allow emul­sion remover to dry in the screen. Doing so will cause per­ma­nent dam­age to the screen.

Technical Specifications

• 5 x 7 in. (land­scape) art­work area cen­tered on an 9 x 12 in. sheet of paper.
• One color 

Assessment

• The fol­low­ing rubric posted on D2L will deter­mine assign­ment score: Assign­ment 01.04: Screen Print Art Types

Techniques

Brain­storm­ing, con­cep­tual devel­op­ment, draw­ing, dig­i­tal image devel­op­ment, emul­sion coat­ing, expo­sure, washout, reg­is­tra­tion, print­ing, cleanup, reclamation

Supplies

Art­work, com­puter, appro­pri­ate soft­ware, film pos­i­tives, screen, emul­sion, expo­sure unit, washout booth, print­ing press, squeegee, paper, emul­sion remover, scrub brush.

Deadlines

Monday/Wednesday, Feb­ru­ary ⁶⁄₈, 2017. Assign­ment Given.

Monday/Wednesday, Feb­ru­ary ¹³⁄₁₅, 2017. Parts One and Two due.

Monday/Wednesday, Feb­ru­ary ²⁰⁄₂₂, 2017. Parts Three and Four due.

Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 27, 2017. All Parts due for review in class and in appro­pri­ate D2L section.