Random fact about me: I’m in a Subaru owners car group based in the
city San Luis Obispo, CA. Recently, a few of the members asked me to
make t-shirts with our groups logo “SLObaru” for a Subaru event in
southern California. I used a two color application process that’s
actually much easier to do than it sounds, and whether you are in a car
group yourself or just have a design with multiple colors, this process
can work for you.
First, I started with my artwork (pictured above) and printed it off
on my ink jet printer onto ink jet transparency. It is important that
the design be as opaque as possible, as it will result in a high quality
stencil. Using the
EZScreenPrint basic starter kit
materials, I exposed my silk screen stencil for one minute in direct
sunlight using my artwork. After letting it soak and rinse out following
the instructions found in the kit or video found at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU8V_ePdXtk I was ready to start screen printing my t-shirts.
When following a two color application process, the first step is to
block off a portion of the stencil that will be the secondary color. I
found using blue painters tape is the easiest solution for this step.
For my design, I put painters tape over the portion of the stencil that
reads “baru.” I found a Speedball screen printing ink that closely
matched the STi “Cherry Blossom Red” which is called, Florescent
Magenta. I placed the stencil over my white t-shirt, and using the
squeegee provided in the screen print kit, I pressed the ink over the
stencil. I lifted the stencil and brought it down over the next t-shirt,
and repeated the process until all my t-shirts had the pink “SLO”
screen printed on the front.
Once I allowed enough time for the ink to dry, I removed the tape
from the “baru” and placed new tape over the letters “SLO” on my
stencil. I repeated the same process as before except I used the black
Speedball screen printing ink. After all my shirts had the secondary
color, I allowed it to air dry then heat set each shirt with an iron.
My friends were thrilled to see the finished results and were
extremely impressed with how professional the t-shirts looked without
having to pay professional prices.