Quick guide to screen printing

2. • Draw or find an image or shape that you want to cut out.
• Carefully cut the shape out using a craft knife
• Keep both parts of the cut out as they can both be used

3. • Screen printing can be messy so put down lots of newspaper and wear
protective / old clothing.
• Place the material you want to print onto the table, then put your cut out on top
of this.
• Put the screen on top of the material and cut out

4. • Add a layer of paint (any colour, use more than one if you like). Use a
spatula for this
• Make sure the paint is at the edge – not over the cut out. It must also be
as long or wide as the cut out. Leave a gap to the edge of the screen too
Gap
Not touching the cut out Long enough paint to cover the
whole print
• When applying the paint you want a thick layer, so put on a big dob by
banging the spatula against the screen

5. • You might need a friend to help here; Push the screen down so that it doesn’t
move.
• In one movement (you should only do this once) pull the squeegee from the gap
before the paint, through the paint and to the other side of the screen.
Pull squeegee
from here
to here
Squeegee at 45˚ angle

6. • Lift the screen carefully and remove your pattern / cut out. Put this somewhere to
dry as you can reuse it.
• Rinse the screen straight away – if the paint dries it will ruin the screen.
• You can mess around with different colour paints, re use the templates.
• When screen printing things wont always turn out how you want, edge may be
blurred, paint may run. Things like this are called happy mistakes.
• You need to iron fabric on a hot setting to prevent the paint from running when you
wash it