Screen printing: Prints

Screen printing is a printing technique that allows us to make multiple prints of the same image . These prints can be made on different media, such as paper, textiles, clay, etc. Here we will discuss screen printing applied to ceramics.

Below is the technical sheet for this process, which I made available to the students I taught this course. After several months of research and experimentation, I came to my conclusions and the results that seemed satisfactory. This means that this technical sheet will always be subject to improvements. If you feel like you should test any part of the process in another way, do so and try to do things your way.

About ink and printing processes

- The mesh must be dry when we use it.

- We will have to use a paint with very fine particles. High-fire paints only work on more open meshes (80M for example). In mesh sizes of 120M or more, we must use underglazes.

- The paint to be used must be thick , like cream. Leave it in the air to dry or add a little Mayco AC-310 medium powder. If it's too liquid it will smudge.

- In summer the paint will dry faster than in winter. This causes the mesh to become clogged with dried ink after 2 or 3 prints. To prevent the ink from drying too quickly, we can add a screen printing medium to the ink (Speedball's transparent base, for example); about 1 part medium to 4 parts paint. This medium will make the paint more liquid. We may have to adjust again.

- Prints can be made directly on clay, on newspaper or silk paper (obtaining decals) or on a gelli plate.

- We can play with colors and use several different colors in the same print.

Direct printing on clay:

- Flat surface, or not.

- Clay in a leathery state (moisture level varies from clay to clay)

Paper printing:

- This way we make decals that can be saved and used later.

- The decals are stamped on leather-like clay.

- If we use newspaper type paper , we must moisten the decal with a few splashes of water (on the back of the paper and not directly on the ink) before applying it, but we must wait until the paper loses its shine, otherwise the excess of water will make the drawing smudged. Then we apply the decal and pass it with a rim over the paper to transfer the paint well to the clay. If the clay is too hard, the paint doesn't transfer as easily and we have to insist (we can lift a corner of the decal and confirm that all the paint has come off, if it hasn't, we return the decal and continue applying the kidney). Moistening the paper with a damp sponge may help. But the extra water, whether on the paper or what we add with the sponge, will blur the image (especially if the clay is softer, this water also counts).

- If the decals were printed on tissue paper , transferring the image is much easier, as the ink comes off the paper more easily, just like industrial decals.

- The great advantage of decals is that in addition to being able to make several and use them later, we can cut the paper according to what we want and better control any composition we want to make.

Gelli plate printing:

- There are gelli plates of different sizes and shapes.

- After printing on the gelli plate, and before the ink dries, the piece is rolled onto the plate and the image is transferred to the piece.

- You can also take the gelli plate and stamp it directly onto the clay. This comes in handy if the piece is large or if it's not practical to roll the piece. It's easier to do this with smaller plates than with large ones.

- The great advantage of using the gelli plate is that we can make prints on clay in a leathery, dry, bisqued state or with a raw glaze already applied .

- Attention: if we print on a very thick layer of raw glaze, the image may "melt" or disappear.

- Still in the case of printing on the raw glaze, some types of glaze (mattes, from what I observed) cause the black underglaze to turn brown.

Search suggestions : pottery screen printing; screen printing underglaze transfers; gelli plate ceramics

I also suggest taking a look at Shawna Pincus's delicious videos @pinkkisspottery , I learned a lot watching her work. Thank you Shawna!