You've picked your textiles, created a t-shirt design and placed your order. So what happens next?
The first step in getting your design onto a t-shirt involves printing films for the various colors used. A graphic artist will look at your artwork and determine the best method of printing the colors.
The two main methods of printing colors are spot colors and four-color process. Spot colors are individual colors that are printed separately. There are 100's of pre-mixed colors and an infinite number of colors that can be mixed to specification (e.g. Pantone Matching System colors).
Four-color process physically blends four colors (Cyan (sky blue), Magenta (hot pink), Yellow and Black) on the textile to create a large variety of colors. Four-color process, also known as CMYK, is used to simulate photographic work and graphics with sophisticated shading and textural effects. A hybrid form of printing known as simulated process is sometimes used, combining components of both process and spot color printing.
The graphic artist creates transparent acetate films of each color and prints them in black along with registration marks and identifying information. The films are then collected into an envelope with printing instructions and sent to the be burned onto screens.
Each color of your t-shirt design is then exposed via a high-intensity lightbox onto a fine mesh screen that has been coated with photosensitive emulsion. These screens were initially made from silk, thus the origin of the term silkscreen. When the emulsion is exposed, it hardens and becomes insoluble to water. The black sections of the acetate film prevent light from getting to the emulsion immediately beneath them. Those sections not exposed will dissolve in water. The screen is placed in a high-pressure washing unit where the unexposed sections of emulsion are washed out of the screen. What remains is, in effect, an intricate stencil for that particular color of ink.
While the Art Department is working on your films, your t-shirts are being ordered from wholesalers. Sometimes this can be a challenge; calls can be made all across the country looking for a particular size or color of t-shirt. When the textiles arrive, they are counted in and checked against the order for accuracy and then taken to the screen printers.
A multiple-head press holds a number of screens from as few as four to as many as sixteen. The screens are arranged radially and rotate over palettes that the t shirts are loaded on. There are both automatic and manual presses; on automatics the rotation is handled by pneumatics while smaller manual presses are physically rotated by the printer. Each screen is placed onto a bracket, or head, and locked into place. The printer then carefully adjusts the printed images from each screen until they are all in correct alignment for the final, combined image. The correct color of ink is added to each screen and is forced through the screen's openings by pulling a squeegee from the bottom of the screen to the top. A number of different factors affect the final silkscreen print result, including the hardness of the squeegee, the angle and force of the pull used, and the type of ink used.
After printing, your t-shirts are run through a high-temperature dryer to cure the ink so it will bind to the fibers of the material. A final test print is approved by the graphic artist working on your design, and the run of t-shirts is printed.
Showing posts with label color. Show all posts
Showing posts with label color. Show all posts
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Learn To Paint Like A Child
All children love to draw or paint. It matters little whether the result is an exact copy of reality because at that very moment reality is in the mind of the artist. As they draw they are creators and each will stand back to admire what they have accomplished. It is not their desire to become an artist, they are there already!
There is that small child in all of us – an artist inside that holds a perception of the world as expressed by our feelings and thoughts. It differs from everyone else; it is unique. But during the years of maturity we became self-conscious about our abilities. Unfortunately, we might have been criticized and decided that our talents lay somewhere else. Because it was met with some form of disapproval, we stopped being so free with our expressions.
Picasso once said, “All of my life I have been learning to paint like a child”. Did he succeed? I think he did, because he never let go of his child-like images. He was the master of innocence. Today his artworks are priceless, but at the time they were created I’m sure some judged them harshly.
My first recollection of drawing or painting was around the age of ten. By high school I spent my meager earnings on oil paints and canvas. My passion was nature – animals in particular and that was my subject material at the time. Talent has two definitions--a natural ability or a developed skill. My parents couldn’t send me to art school, so I depended on the former.
I am still painting in my senior years without the benefit of schooling. There were times when I thought I should have learned the basics of form, reflective light, color-wheel importance, composition, etc. Still, not everyone can deal with the pressure of grades or a structured format. I paint from my heart, expressing what my mind dictates, and there are no schools that teach that. I give myself new challenges, just to see if I can produce this vision on canvas to my own satisfaction. You don't have to have a certificate to do that.
Often we look at things without really seeing them. After all, our eyes are merely lenses; they have no knowledge, no memories and no experiences. To see well we must open our minds as well as our eyes. Perhaps for that reason I like to paint the less-than-perfect subject material.
A broken sea-shell has more character than any perfect specimen. Models, just short of perfect beauty leave a little ‘yet to be desired’. My choice for portraits would be in the facial structure itself, eye or skin color and character lines. It’s been said that there are two times when a boy can be called beautiful -- at puberty, and when felled by the sword. I see in each of these a child-like perception and I am driven, at times, to put these images on canvas.
Henri Matisse put it this way: “Creation begins with vision. The artist has to look at everything as though seeing it for the first time, like a child”.
There is that small child in all of us – an artist inside that holds a perception of the world as expressed by our feelings and thoughts. It differs from everyone else; it is unique. But during the years of maturity we became self-conscious about our abilities. Unfortunately, we might have been criticized and decided that our talents lay somewhere else. Because it was met with some form of disapproval, we stopped being so free with our expressions.
Picasso once said, “All of my life I have been learning to paint like a child”. Did he succeed? I think he did, because he never let go of his child-like images. He was the master of innocence. Today his artworks are priceless, but at the time they were created I’m sure some judged them harshly.
My first recollection of drawing or painting was around the age of ten. By high school I spent my meager earnings on oil paints and canvas. My passion was nature – animals in particular and that was my subject material at the time. Talent has two definitions--a natural ability or a developed skill. My parents couldn’t send me to art school, so I depended on the former.
I am still painting in my senior years without the benefit of schooling. There were times when I thought I should have learned the basics of form, reflective light, color-wheel importance, composition, etc. Still, not everyone can deal with the pressure of grades or a structured format. I paint from my heart, expressing what my mind dictates, and there are no schools that teach that. I give myself new challenges, just to see if I can produce this vision on canvas to my own satisfaction. You don't have to have a certificate to do that.
Often we look at things without really seeing them. After all, our eyes are merely lenses; they have no knowledge, no memories and no experiences. To see well we must open our minds as well as our eyes. Perhaps for that reason I like to paint the less-than-perfect subject material.
A broken sea-shell has more character than any perfect specimen. Models, just short of perfect beauty leave a little ‘yet to be desired’. My choice for portraits would be in the facial structure itself, eye or skin color and character lines. It’s been said that there are two times when a boy can be called beautiful -- at puberty, and when felled by the sword. I see in each of these a child-like perception and I am driven, at times, to put these images on canvas.
Henri Matisse put it this way: “Creation begins with vision. The artist has to look at everything as though seeing it for the first time, like a child”.
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