Snip, Burn, Solder, Shred

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CHEAP MESH SCREEN PRINTING

Invented in China roughly 2,000 years ago, silk screen printing is the cheapest, most pleasing way to directly reproduce images and designs. A screen (once silk, now usually polyester, but in all cases permeable to ink) is stretched over a wooden frame, and screen filler is applied to all portions of the screen that are not part of the intended design, forming a stencil. (The Chinese used to do this by weaving human hairs into the screen in order to make portions impermeable.) Once the filler has dried, you apply ink to the screen and pull the ink across the open design with a squeegee, flooding the mesh and pressing through onto your substrate (usually paper or cloth). You then repeat this process, adding more ink ...