Multicolor Registration and Silkscreening

Color registration used to be my foe and involved lots of transparencies, single color at a time printing, tape, and a ton of time wasting.

After many methods, I've finally started using a registration board for lining up my color on the screens. This makes setting them up on press and getting reliable color placement super easy. I still use tape to mark were I lay my paper prints down at but laying all my colors at once instead of one at a time is a huge time saver.

I was first introduced to the registration board back when I took the Silkscreen Academy course from Ryonet. They offer a pre-made board for about $80 that's a bit fancy then what I needed. I got the idea to make my own when I visited Tilteed.com and saw theirs. You can make one like mine for about $12, plus some time.

If you are doing anything with multicolor you're gonna want to setup one up. I used a piece of 25" x 25" plexi glass that I picked up at our local Ace Hardware. Then I taped off a space of 24" x 20" ( my screens actual size), and marked in the center lines. On the back, I taped registration marks for various size prints.

With your board in place you want to print your artwork transparencies with registration marks, typically this option can be found in most Adobe softwares print window. You want to put some tape on your transparencies then line up the marks by eye. When all lined up, you simply drop your screen onto the transparency using the boarder lines.

Once done you're all set to expose...

I'm actually posting this while I wait for the above screen to dry! Be sure to join us Friday, Saturday or Sunday for more Silkscreen demos during our Black Friday 3 Day event!

A Sneak peak of things to come

This process video is a time lapse of me printing an updated version of my Binary Thank You Cards. This time in A2 format and later today, I go on the look out for appropriate envelopes. They'll be available in my etsy soon but also @ our BlackFriday Event. Come check them out, along with a ton of other goods!

If the above video doesn't work, please check it out here!

The Shop

Seeing as this is my 200th post, I thought it fitting to officially announce the opening of my new shop space. One of the primary reasons I moved from my apartment in the NW to NoPo was the promise that this space held.

I'm incredibly excited! Originally this space was a garage and had been used for home brewing. The current owner of the house had repurposed it as a dog pin and lounge space ( including a full size beer fridge) but in more recent years it's just been used for general storage. We removed a built in dog pin that was in the far left corner, installed a washtub over the french drain in the far right corner, installed a large chalkboard, some lights and modified a rescued cabinet from the rebuilding center into a drying and storage unit for the screens.

I hope to get my supplies sorted out this week and get going on two card projects for my Etsy shop before the weeks end. I also have several apparel projects in the works, with hopes of getting those printed by next week. Stay tuned!

T-Shirt Chomp

So I decided it was time to up-train my hand with silkscreening. Doing simple one color and even two color prints is easy stuff but not really. I'll be leaking class secrets and more about the class this weekend as I go through and clean up my notes. Above is a doodle of a rather large conveyer dryer that's used for curing the inks on your tee's.