My first attempt at a DIY print onto a T shirt using photographic emulsion and a mesh screen, documented with photographs. Click on the photos to load up the full picture

1. For a long time I’ve been wanting to learn how to make prints onto T shirts, so this week I decided to grab a Speedball Screenprinting kit. This one came with a screen with mesh, squeegie, 3 paints, screen filler, drawing fluid, Diazo photographic emulsion, Diazo sensitizer, and a paint brush.
2. Designing the logo to be printed. There are few different ways of making a screen for printing, the method I decided to use involved making a ‘positive’ then exposing an emulsion covered screen to make a ‘negative’.
3. The finished ‘positive’. This was made by printing the design onto a transparency with a laser printer, then touching it up with a black Sharpie.



4. The sensitizer. This is mixed into the emulsion.
5. The emulsion. This stuff turns green when the sensitizer is mixed in, from then on it’s sensitive to light.
6. The screen is coated with a thin layer of the emulsion and then left in a dark room to dry. Any light or heat could ruin the screen here. I used a fan to speed up the process



7. Once the emulsion is dry it can be exposed using the positive I made earlier. This basically sets all the emulsion that is exposed to the light, while the areas underneath the black parts of the positive remain water-soluble. I used a 250 watt bulb at a height of 12 inches for 12 minutes.
8. Immediately after exposure the screen must be washed to remove the emulsion from the unexposed areas.
9. Closeup of my screwups. I don’t have a high pressure nozzle so I may have spent too much time scrubbing the screen under the tap. In the process I’ve torn up some of the design around the ‘a’ of agarjelly.



10. Screen filler fixed up the ‘a’ and the areas that I ruined during washing.
11. Setting up for print once the screen has completely dried. Plenty of newspaper in case of big mess.
12. The print is done, but far from perfect. The first print I did was just visible, but I misaligned the screen when I tried to go over it. This is the reason for the ’shadow’ effect. It looks ok, but It’s not what I wanted. Also, parts of the print are not solid. Next time I might use a courser mesh, a thinner paint, less exposure time and more care when washing the screen. Also, I’ll make sure that the paint I buy is RED and not PINK.

Pretty OK for a first time run.