Today we learned the first steps of how to BURN A SCREEN!!Which, as you've learned, has nothing to do with fire. Please don't set your screen on fire.
You received a "Photo-Emulsion Screen Burning Demo Worksheet" today to help you retain information and to use as a study help for any quizzes that we might have. Here is a link to a pdf of that handout if you lose yours.
We went over most of the information/questions on the worksheet today, and you had time to work on it-- you can finish up after Tuesday's "Part Two" demo. The worksheet will be scored (so you can earn points for participating today and tomorrow), and you will have a chance to check your answers for correctness. Don't worry about turning it in, yet-- specific info on how it's going to be graded/turned in is coming soon!
Anyway. Back to this:
BURNING A SCREEN has THREE STEPS:
1. EXPOSE to LIGHT
2. DEVELOP with WATER
3. BLAST OUT RESIDUE
What was covered in today's demo:
- you learned about the ANATOMY of a screen (which is the "print-side", which is the "squeegee-side", and why that's important to know)
- You learned about FILLING SCREENS
When? The day before you're going to burn it! (in other words, need to be READY to burn... your artwork is done and ready to be photocopied onto vellum, or you've finished cutting rubylith or about to be finished, etc). Also, it takes 8 hours for the emulsion coating to dry/be ready for exposing/burning.
How? Put your clean, "reclaimed" (no stencil/emulsion on it), DRY screen into the "TO BE FILLED" rack. Then, like magic, I coat it with photo-emulsion for you.
Where? do you find it the next day-? In the DARKROOM. Because photo-emulsion is light-sensitive.
- we reviewed/mentioned these terms:
PHOTO-EMULSION (the light-sensitive coating on a screen which is used to block areas of the screen and create stencils for printing)
IMAGE POSITIVE (the item used to block the light when burning a screen-- could be something opaque like a shape cut out of paper; could be a rubylith, where the film blocks the light and the plastic backing is transparent and allows light through; could be a design photocopied onto vellum, in which the black toner blocks the light and the translucent vellum allows light through)
- and you were introduced to the following terms:
SAFETY LIGHTS or SAFELIGHTS (photo-emulsion is light-sensitive. You allow light to hit it in a controlled setting-- on the exposure table-- in order to "expose" the emulsion with your stencil. Therefore, you don't want other light to expose the emulsion until YOU have exposed and developed it according to the screen burning process. Or, to make this simpler: KEEP YOUR SCREEN OUT OF THE LIGHT UNTIL IT'S BEEN BEEN EXPOSED ON THE LIGHT TABLE AND DEVELOPED WITH WATER. You need some light to see what you're doing, though, so we have "safelights". These are low-light emitting bulbs that illuminate the sinkroom and darkroom when you're burning.)
EXPOSURE TABLE (the big light table/machine/exposure unit, used to... expose your screen).
It works like this:
THEN, you watched the greatest movie ever made, directed and filmed and narrated by me. This covered the actions of exposing a screen using the table, in the darkroom, and then "developing" the stencil, with water, in the sinkroom, and the final (and very important) step of burning, to "blast out" the remaining residue. You're welcome.
Tomorrow we continue with PART TWO of this demo, which includes me actually (and quickly) physically burning a screen (in real time! Ooh!), how to get your screen "filled" in the first place, developing tips, etc etc.
I realize this is a whole lot of information! Luckily you're not required to memorize it all; you'll have a checklist (written detailed instructions) that you're required to follow the first time you burn, and which you could then use as reference any time as needed, in the future. You'll get the hang of the process quickly, though.
There are also other helps like these exposure steps, posted in the darkroom:
See. I totally want you to succeed. Yay screen burning!
p.s. here is the first of my many reminders:
DO NOT TAKE YOUR SCREEN OUT OF THE DARKROOM/INTO "NORMAL" LIGHT UNTIL YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST TWO STEPS OF THE BURNING PROCESS! -EXPOSE TO LIGHT (in the darkroom) and DEVELOP WITH WATER (in the sinkroom)
