Another Year of Clovis

Clovis is six years old today.  How time flies.  I remember when he first arrived and was this tiny.

Now, he's six.  I have been planning to make Clovis t-shirts for a while now, but it seems fitting that the plan was finally realized on the eve of his birthday.  Here is a little bit about the process of screen printing the t-shirts.  I was led into the world of printmaking by a great teacher and friend, Caitlin.  We worked at AS220's print shop, the organization that was featured in a travel article about Providence in today's New York Times!

First, I started with the design.  This was an iterative process over many weeks.  Once the design was complete, I printed it onto acetate sheets.  At the print shop, the acetate templates were photo-exposed onto an emulsion that had been spread across a screen and dried.

The light-exposed emulsion hardens and the areas where the black template prevents light exposure remains soft and gets washed away, creating a sort of stencil.

Each shirt is placed on the table according to guide marks, the screen is folded down and the ink is hand-pressed through the screen using a squeegee.  Each impression is unique.  Learning the right pressure and angle for ink delivery is all a part of the art.

The shirts are then dried on racks.

Prior to printing the shirts, we did a number of test prints on various colored paper.  I love these, too!

And here is the final product, some beautiful Clovis prints and t-shirts, just in time for his birthday!