I decided that with my new found screen pulling powers i shouldn't settle with the 2nd rate 1st round of turkey screen prints i had made before xmas. I re-worked all of the halftone areas so the dots weren't so small, got rid of the halftones on the red layer as they weren't really adding to the final image, had to also re-do all the cracked effect and shuffle the shards around to create the illusion of shattered pieces.
Things to remember:
• Include CROP MARKS, and remember to tape over them after the first pull onto the Kodatrace.
• Check Kodatrace for bumps & creases before i start printing.
• Make sure i'm getting a good flood onto my screen in-between pulls to prevent the paint drying up.
• Don't get too stingey with the black paint.
• If it starts sticking, take a step back, do a print onto newsprint unit the problem is sorted.
• Swear at myself less!
As i'd been having slight issues with my registration on previous prints i've added trapping to my red layer, which I've done my best to explain below.
This diagram explains better than i can, but basically buy adding trapping to my colour layer mean that even if my lining up is piss poor (to a point) there still won't be any white gaps, as the area of red underneath the black layer will have been made wider. (I've tried to make it a bit clearer below.)
What the print would look like with wonky registration without trapping.
With trapping added it will give me some leeway
if the two colour layers aren't as perfectly lined up as i'd like. This will hopefully
help me to avoid the white gaps/space in-between the red & black shapes.
With & without trapping, inside Photoshop
RESULTS
(will re-take photos as these ones have gone all blurry)
The best print of the lot, and happened to be the first one i pulled. Couldn't have come out much better, and that's me saying this! At last i wasn't worrying about how bad the black was going print out, and i was pulling good print constantly.No money in the swear box today!
Despite the crops marks not showing up on the exposure of my red/pink layer the registration was a lot better all round, thanks to the addition of trapping.This technique will be something i'll take into my final print aswell.
In a passing convo with Fred, who know's alllll about this tech print stuff , he noticed that the bigger areas of halftones (namely on Doug Haig's suit and on the upper wing of the turkey) had printed out in grids, or what is apparently called Moire, let google explain...
In mathematics, physics, and art, a moiré pattern (/mwɑrˈeɪ/; French: [mwaˈʁe]) is a secondary and visually evident superimposed pattern created, for example, when two identical (usually transparent) patterns on a flat or curved surface (such as closely spaced straight lines drawn radiating from a point or taking the form of a grid) are overlaid while displaced or rotated a small amount from one another.
Moire is the interference of halftones and mesh. This interference is the result of mesh or mesh knuckles blocking some or part of the halftones in an image. Generally moire is controlled by placing halftones on a specific angle when creating film via a RIP program and having four or more mesh open areas per half tone dot.
I'd never heard of it, but always noticed it 'strobing' when making halftones on screen. I hadn't really noticed it on my prints ( i hadn't really gotten around to look at them much as it goes) but i just thought it mustve been something to do with the way i'd screen printed them? It was all a bit over my head, but the main factor was that my imagery was to too high res for half toning and was causing it to appear in grids and ideally halftones need to be made at 100dpi rather than the 300dpi standard. Applying this to my screen printing would mean that i'd need to make a separate screen for just my 100dpi halftones - something ill take into account in the future, but as I've only just got over the mountain that is screen printing with 2 screens it'll be a while before i try anything that fiddly. The majority of my half toning wasn't affected by Moire as it mostly small areas, but interesting to find out about it.
All in all i much more enjoyable, relaxing screen print day. Really happy with the results in general - managed to pull my submission print at the 1st time of asking! Had a couple of prints where the black started to run out and dry in the corners so had some slightly patchy prints, nothing compare to last time and i was able to put it right with zero fuss and without too many dodgy prints. The registration started going a bit pear shaped toward the end of the run,Kodatrace was looking a bit battered by the end of the day, so will put it down to that. Although i like the colour of the turkey/roses etc, it came out a a bit pinker than i was expecting. I'd used mainly crimson with some neon pink to make more of a light magenta-ish shade. Didn't put much pink in but it's surprising what an effect it had, but a happy surprise - i'd rather it was on the bright side rather than going dull. Its also a great contrast with the black and white. I think going on to the 30x30 images for the Colour May Vary show, this composition will be the one i modify and exhibit.
Still not sure if i'd get away with asking for money off the public for these - how 'perfect' does it have to be. Or is it just a case of; make it available. if they like it, they'll buy it?
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