Split Fountain Printing
A Case study of "America Bless God"
by C. Drew
Printing a split fountain screen demands the printer use good squeegee handling
technique. Accidentally, pulling a print with the squeegee flipped differently
will mix the colors and end a printing run. After cleaning-up a few times you
learn fast. Do it. To do it is to make all the mistakes in this book. I'm just
here to improve the accuracy of your expectations - not prevent you from making
mistakes. Ha-ha ;*o Ho-ho.
Split Fountain printing usually refers to using two or three colors ink in the screen. These colors might be two or three colors added along a side of the screen and always pulled horizontally one way then flooded back the other with a close eye on the sameness of position and movement to minimize the mixing of the inks. In the beginning - if you want some mixing a little zig-zag movement aught to do that or just run some test prints. The colors could be printed vertically for a different design or even diagonally or as in
"Bicycle Love" in a curve.
Often, as in the blue screen of Chicago River, the background screen of "Bicycle Love," the blue (in the sky of "Board of Trade," and the main screen of "America Bless God," I add an abstract painting technique. I do not use a flood pull with this technique. Little pieces of card stock become my paint brushes on the open unflooded (un-inked) screen. Miniature globs of ink are scoped up on 1" by ½" cards and slashed across the screen before each pull to create effects and to adjust colors in broad areas as the printing run progresses.
In "America Bless God" each color area has its own considerations in how I apply ink with cards before the pull. The starting colors in the screen are from top to bottom, black, blue, white, yellow with a slash of blue ink at the bottom of the yellow.
The black area is to stress the type - "America Bless." It is allowed to extend into the blue that dominates the sky. When a greater amount of black mixes with the sky a later dusk or earlier dawn appearance results in the printed image. Moe back in the sky may also give the appearance of stormy weather depending on other colors and ink movements.
The blue is adjusted on nearly every print with cards brushing white ink or white and dark blue ink applied with cards to add abstract card effects. On long runs late at night strange extemporaneous images result using this technique. Dolphins are seen jumping out of waves and faces warp up from the shadows. I like to add quick slices of red to my skies. These fade to purple and add motion - turbulence - to the print. Red fits a sunset or sunrise color theme - a beginning or an ending. Yellow is only rarely added to the sky and almost never directly.
Between the land and the sky, I keep a variable barrier of white ink on most prints. Only occasionally do I allow the colors of the land to cross over this barrier into the sky colors. I apply the white barrier of ink with a larger scope of card and lay a heavy streak of white in across the middle of the screen. When the squeegee is pulled across the screen this ink collects and pushes out from the center to mix with the sky and land colors on either side. Most of the sky is really white ink mixed with blue added in small amounts.
When land colors of yellow and green are allowed to briefly mix across the barrier of white ink - dramatic effects may result. This can quickly degenerate into ugly mud colors.
Yellow is the second most used color behind white ink in this design. By dabbing and scraping small amounts of blue ink on the screen near the bottom of the image - the yellow ink develops a variety of greens. Adding touches of red to this blends to gold colors.
All these added dabs and card color scrapings must be done in quick succession between prints to keep the ink flowing through the screen evenly. Water based inks dry the fastest of all inks and are for that reason the hardest to print. They give a print on 100% cotton that fuses with the fabric and which allows the fabric to breath and to cool you off as you sweat unlike the rubbery effect of petroleum based inks that do not absorb your body sweat and heat your heat against you.
Screen printing in the hands of an artist is not just a technical skill - it is an art.
Thanks for visiting my web site segment. - C. Drew
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