We're doing water soluable silkscreen printing in my 8th grade classes right
now, and definately loving it. Even the 'unreachables' are engaged.
We cut stencils from a very thick wax paper material. Have never had trouble
with wrinkling, even after the stencil is removed from the screen, cleaned,
dried, and reinstalled on another screen another day. I'll have to look on
the package when I get to school, and forward you the product name. The
stencil is blocked in with masking tape. Also, we use small pieces of
masking tape cut to shape to fill areas I refer to as floating islands, such
as the circle inside the letter 'o'.
They can choose to do paper prints and/or fabric prints. We use standard
watersoluable block printing inks for paper prints, and for printing on
fabrics such as T shirts, we use acrylic paints with fabric medium mixed in.
The only problem with printing with acrylics is the 'ink' needs to be
constantly in motion, to prevent it from drying in the screen.
I have students work in teams of two, so one is getting their hands dirty
printing while the other stays clean, lining up fresh paper to print on,
putting prints on the drying rack, hanging T shirts and boxers on the line
to dry.
I've sent the SILKSCREEN SELF EVALUATION and SILKSCREEN OPTIONS to the list
in seperate posts. I hope these help.
