The last time I did any screenprinting on my own was back in High School, when Mr. Haruch showed us how to cut acetate with an X-Acto knife and burn it in with acetone. It was time-consuming and delicate work, especially for complicated images. Once I’d mastered that process, I ran with it. I made band T-shirts and custom designs for friends. I experimented with 4-color registration to run prints of the Watchmen smileyface button. I was also thinking as an entrepreneur: I created two designs and sold them on T-shirts to help finance a marching band trip to Disney World.

This is my first time working with photo emulsion, so I’m being very careful and taking notes. On Monday evening, I mixed up the emulsion, painted a screen, and set it out to dry. Last night I set up a basic light stand and burned the design in.

I had to guess at the exposure time, but it seemed to work well. After an hour’s wait, I had a screen with two designs ready: one kid-sized and one adult-sized. This weekend I’m going to hit the Target for some inexpensive shirts and get to printing.