Super Busy End of the School Year

The last month or so has been exceptionally hectic. My most thrilling activity lately has been taking care of my new baby daughter who was just too eager to get out into the world and made her appearance a few weeks early.

Just before starting my parental leave, I had tons of fun screen printing t-shirts with the entire school. I had tried simple screen printing with a few kids but never tried printing shirts with a whole class, so I figured why not try it with the entire school the first time around. The process is fairly simple. I had classes make designs the weeks before printing. Kids made black and white designs that could be translated into stencils. I had every student make a design, then classes voted on one design for their class. I used my Cameo Silhouette cutter to cut stencils of their designs. If you haven't tried screen printing with your students, I highly recommend it. Using a stencil method it is fairly easy for even young students to be successful and kids are super excited and proud of their final products. Getting all the equipment needed costs a little bit up front, but it is a totally worthwhile investment. You can get a Cameo Silhouette Cutter on Amazon for about $200 and screens and squeegees can be relatively cheap (around $20) depending on the size you need.

I created this video to show my students how to print their t-shirts.

The most common mistakes that students make are not pressing hard enough to get the ink through the stencil, and not spreading the ink over the whole design. The result is faded designs or missing details. I always tell my kids that if it's a little faded or imperfect, that is part of the charm of handmade art, and it just gives it a cool, vintage feel. Of course, if it's really faded, we may need to re-print it. The biggest mistake a student can make is to try and put the screen right back down after printing. I always tell my students if they are not happy with their print, they should set it aside and let it dry, then we talk about options for fixing it. If it needs to be printed again, let the print dry first, then you can carefully line up the stencil without smearing the ink.

Here are some other resources that might be helpful:

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