I had ordered five Speedball Screen Printing Tool Kits (http://www.utrechtart.com/dsp_view_product.cfm?item=56776) because they promised to contain all needed supplies and I had no idea what I was doing.  I came up with a project for the kids (use diagonal forces to create a design containing both text and images), and then set out to do a test run myself.  There are an infinite amount of things you can put on a t-shirt.  This is one of my most challenging life issues- deciding on just one path.  I find it impossible when there are so many art forms, materials, ideas, inspirations… focus…  Anyway, for my first design I did the family equivalent of flipping a coin.  I asked my two-year-old.

“Lucian, if you could have anything in the world on a t-shirt, what would you want?”  He replied almost immediately:  ”Bunny Rabbit.”  Wow.  Okay.  Bunny rabbit it is.

My first lesson learned for my students was that it took me many, many sketches to come up with my final design.  I saved all of them to show my students the evolution of both text, image, and placement.  The bunny started off kind of bugs bunnyey, got a beer gut, and then turned back into a real -looking bunny.  For here, I think the final sketch will suffice. The next step was to trace the design on to the silkscreen.  I used a pencil.  Then I went over my pencil sketch with the blue drawing fluid in the kit.  After the drawing fluid had thoroughly dried, I painted on the screen blocking fluid with a paint brush rather than squeegee it on as the directions recommended.  After the screen blocker was dry, I rinsed the screen with cold water until the drawing fluid disappeared.  Then I had a screen that was ready to be inked.   Ryan had suggested using a metal clamp, even a door hinge to secure the frame to a table before inking, but I ended up having a partner help since I had limited funds and equipment at school.  I plan on following his hinge advice for future projects at home, although the partner method also works fine.  I used speedball water based ink and American Apparel shirts for my first run.  I only got American Apparel because they are the closest place to my school that carries t-shirts, but it turns out after some internet research that many people choose American Apparel shirts for their screen printing projects.  They aren’t cheap, but they’re American made, organic, yada, yada, yada.  Downright comfy too.  I went hunting through my closet and found that a couple of hand printed shirts I already owned were American Apparel.  Thinking of trying to order some in bulk for future use…  Anyway, I printed one shirt for my son, and one for his dad.  They were both very happy with them.