Tuesday, March 23, 2010

making stencils


Yesterday, I printed out pages full of my munaluna owl to make a stencil. In order to make a stencil from paper, you have to make the paper translucent, in which I used vegetable oil to completely soak the paper and let it dry. (I let the papers dry on an oven rack!) After it dries, it will be clear enough that only the printed part will be opaque - this way, only my owl will be transferred to my emulsion covered screen! I normally just make paper cutouts of my designs, but for my computer generated ones, I use this method. It's all eco-friendly too - no toxic materials are required :) With this multi-printed owl, I plan to make napkins and maybe print it for tea towels too...still considering it :o)

3 comments:

Wendy said...

wow! this is the first time i've heard of this method! i'm guessing it works just as well as having your image copied onto a transparency?

meredith cheng - munaluna said...

Yes, it's a method I use a lot with making my stencils for screenprinting. The only difference is, the paper has to be exposed to the screen for longer to get the impression! This method is more cost effective though - transparency sheets are a bit on the pricey side I think. :p

Wendy said...

I'm all for cost-effective! This makes me all the more eager to start screenprinting!