Oracal 615 – The basics
As I said in the last post, I am of course not the first to try screenprinting with cut vinyl stencils . But I repeat that my ambition was to go further than simply creating a digital image cut out for me on a Cricut. I was particularly keen to keep the freedom, accumulative simplicity and print qualities of paper stencils; but without the fragility and transient nature of that technique, in order to create multi layered ‘fine art’ images.
But a credit should go here to two people in the USA who have done a lot of dissemination of the basics of this technique well before me. First, to Melanie Cervantes of DignidadRebelde.com who was herself initially inspired by the online commercial instructional programmes of Jennifer Sanderson of Pigskins and Pigtails.com. Melanie has used it to great effect and was good enough to point me in the direction of this Oracal 615 material. Thanks both!
As always, by the time I come to write up my trials, I’ve already got ideas and plans to improve on it. So, rest assured this post is far from a definitive guide. Read this and look at the others I mention above and have a go yourself! Because one of the reasons I began all this was primarily to develop a basic fine art screenprint technique requiring no special equipment, no solvents etc and suitable for anyone to use in a basic or home studio.
Oracal 615 is a product designed for digital cut out graphics - which can be applied on a ‘permanent’ basis to objects, walls, windows etc. Widely adopted too by ‘crafters’, it tends to only be available in this country in 12” rolls or small sheets. There is a huge range of colours and (I’ve just discovered!) it comes in both gloss and matt finish. I also see there are cheaper versions available, and I’ve bought some matte and a couple of rolls of cheaper stuff to try in due course.
The big difference between these products and the stencil material I tried in my first attempts is that this direct vinyl is tough! And most importantly, has a waterproof adhesive – designed to be weatherproof. So once adhered to the screen mesh as a stencil, it can, with some care, be actually cleaned out and re used. However, once no longer needed, it actually peels off the mesh very easily for reclaiming the screen - leaving no serious residue at all and requiring only a table top cleaning and degreasing. No serious chemicals or pressure washer required!
So here’s a record of a print edition I made with my first attempt at using it.
As I said in the last post, I am of course not the first to try screenprinting with cut vinyl stencils . But I repeat that my ambition was to go further than simply creating a digital image cut out for me on a Cricut. I was particularly keen to keep the freedom, accumulative simplicity and print qualities of paper stencils; but without the fragility and transient nature of that technique, in order to create multi layered ‘fine art’ images.
But a credit should go here to two people in the USA who have done a lot of dissemination of the basics of this technique well before me. First, to Melanie Cervantes of DignidadRebelde.com who was herself initially inspired by the online commercial instructional programmes of Jennifer Sanderson of Pigskins and Pigtails.com. Melanie has used it to great effect and was good enough to point me in the direction of this Oracal 615 material. Thanks both!
As always, by the time I come to write up my trials, I’ve already got ideas and plans to improve on it. So, rest assured this post is far from a definitive guide. Read this and look at the others I mention above and have a go yourself! Because one of the reasons I began all this was primarily to develop a basic fine art screenprint technique requiring no special equipment, no solvents etc and suitable for anyone to use in a basic or home studio.
Oracal 615 is a product designed for digital cut out graphics - which can be applied on a ‘permanent’ basis to objects, walls, windows etc. Widely adopted too by ‘crafters’, it tends to only be available in this country in 12” rolls or small sheets. There is a huge range of colours and (I’ve just discovered!) it comes in both gloss and matt finish. I also see there are cheaper versions available, and I’ve bought some matte and a couple of rolls of cheaper stuff to try in due course.
The big difference between these products and the stencil material I tried in my first attempts is that this direct vinyl is tough! And most importantly, has a waterproof adhesive – designed to be weatherproof. So once adhered to the screen mesh as a stencil, it can, with some care, be actually cleaned out and re used. However, once no longer needed, it actually peels off the mesh very easily for reclaiming the screen - leaving no serious residue at all and requiring only a table top cleaning and degreasing. No serious chemicals or pressure washer required!
So here’s a record of a print edition I made with my first attempt at using it.
The 615 has a thick paper backing sheet and even the white coloured one is itself quite dense. So tracing an image on to it even using a lightbox is a little difficult. I tried two ways of making a guide line to cut to. First was conventional carbon paper – much the same as I would on a lino block. The problem with this is the weatherproof surface of the vinyl; the carbon image rubs away very easily when cutting out. So for the later stencils I just used soft pencil on the reverse of the tracing and a ballpoint pen on the other side to put down the lines. Sharpie pens etc work very well, but with these simple spontaneous shapes I found I didn’t need to go over the image again. I will try carbon paper on the matt version when I get it.
I have a good deal of experience of hand cutting stencils and rubylith type films for screen printing, so I found cutting the film straightforward with a decent 10a scalpel blade and very little pressure. But you may need to practice on some scrap pieces first to make you you only cut through the top layer of vinyl and leave the backing intact. For fine narrow angles, it is OK to ‘overshoot’ the cuts a little to leave a clean corner. The open areas then simply peel away – a process known by crafters as ‘weeding’.
I have a good deal of experience of hand cutting stencils and rubylith type films for screen printing, so I found cutting the film straightforward with a decent 10a scalpel blade and very little pressure. But you may need to practice on some scrap pieces first to make you you only cut through the top layer of vinyl and leave the backing intact. For fine narrow angles, it is OK to ‘overshoot’ the cuts a little to leave a clean corner. The open areas then simply peel away – a process known by crafters as ‘weeding’.
The next step is to attach your cut stencil to specially made vinyl transfer film or ‘tape’. This is widely available. I used the clear unbacked professional stuff, which is much cheaper than buying the paper backed type from crafter suppliers. One of these very smooth edged little plastic squeegees is a must. I had one anyway, but they are also easily available. The stencil is placed face down on the sticky face of the transfer film and on a smooth firm surface, using the squeegee and medium pressure, carefully work out from the centre of the stencil until all the parts – particularly any small ‘island’ pieces – of your stencil are attached to a sheet of transfer film.
Then carefully peel away the stencil’s backing paper, check all the smaller pieces remain exactly in position on the transfer film. This will leave your stencil (and hopefully all its constituent parts) sticky side up and ready to attach to underside of the screen mesh.
Carefully position the stencil exactly where you want it in relation to the the fixed screen and the position your image will be on your paper will be when printed or to any previously printed areas.
Then slowly lower the screen on to the adhesive of the stencil, press and smooth out first with your hand; ensuring there are no creases or bubbles, then adhere the stencil with the squeegee, pressing firmly but evenly on the printing side of the screen mesh, again from the centre outwards. A smooth pad of several clean sheets of newsprint will help to safely but thoroughly really press the stencil to the underside of the screen, again concentrating on the smaller details. Press quite firmly, but do not use anything with a sharp hard edge or you will risk slashing your mesh!
Then lift the screen and peel off the transfer film, checking again that all parts of the stencil are attached to the mesh.
Your stencil and screen is then ready to tape off and print!
We then come to the only part of my particular process as described here that I am at all concerned about, but which ironically is also one of the things I like about it.
I use water-based inks to print on reasonably heavyweight (300gsm) paper. And I like to use amalgamations of transparent layers, which overlap. The problem with this is, after 3 or 4 layers, larger flat areas can ‘cockle’ or wrinkle the paper. A generally satisfactory solution to this has been to use very fine meshes (normally 140T or 320+ US) which of course, deposits a thinner ink layer.
This vinyl stencil material is quite thick compared to most screen stencils and the pioneers of its use were initially printing on coarser meshes, and on to fabric, where a thick stencil is an advantage. But I found on these very fine meshes, considerable pressure from a soft sharp print squeegee is required to get the ink down through the mesh in fine detail areas. I’m a reasonably strong chap, but it took some effort, a slightly lowered squeegee angle and often a second pull and to get areas like the tips of the claws in this image to print. Experienced users of ‘one arm’ units on professional hand benches would manage better perhaps (I took mine off years ago). Smaller images and smoother shapes would of course make the hand printing effort easier. But my aim in sharing this process was to enable anyone to make screen prints with the simplest of equipment. I will need to see how people get on with their own efforts, inks and meshes.
However, what these thicker stencils and transparent inks do, at the same time, is give me an effect I really like; where the slightly heavier deposit of ink along the edges of the image area give a delicate darker edge to the shape; and thus to a certain extent, relieves the absolute ‘deadness’ of a flat screenprinted shape; which is one of the things I feel can give some fine art screen prints a less interesting textural quality compared to other printmaking methods.
My printing process
So the first layer of this print went down fine and the screen was washed out on the press with a sponge, clean water and paper wipes in my usual way. As I had finished with this stencil, as an experiment, I rubbed the underside with a cleaning cloth to dry it. Not surprisingly, the edges of some areas began to peel. So not a good idea to do anything from underneath if the screen is intended for re use!
And, as expected, on this very fine mesh, it was really easy to remove the used stencil, with just a little careful finger nail work on the smaller pieces.
For the second and third colour stencil on this print I also used a simple reduction process, using an ordinary paper stencil.
The second vinyl stencil was made, attached and registered. See the register position crosses on my tracing paper ‘map’ plan above.
And printed in the same manner as the first colour layer; again with a colour/tone blend, on the whole edition.
Then a simple cut out area in a sheet of freezer paper (most thin paper works OK but freezer paper is semi water resistant) of the area I wished to print again, was laid on a registered test proof; with some small tabs of tape sticky side up on the edges.
And the tape tabs pressed to just tack the paper stencil in place.
A test proof was then printed; the adhesive quality of the wet ink ink itself attaching the paper stencil to the mesh (hopefully still in perfect register!) for all the rest of the edition to receive the third colour.
Once the stencil was peeled off the mesh and the screen thoroughly washed clean, I de-greased the mesh with totally safe Rubbing/Isoproply Alcohol. Another tip gratefully received from Melanie Cervantes!
For the planned fourth colour – I was getting to the final details now – I realised I was running out of vinyl large enough to cover the whole area in one piece. I found that simply taping smaller pieces together, in position, before going ahead with the transfer, works fine. However, I was so wrapped up in working this out that I made the most basic of rookie mistakes….and forgot to reverse the tracing before I cut it out! My excuse is that, of course, normally, hand cut stencils or red film positives are cut out the same way round as they will print.
But I won’t do that again!
But I won’t do that again!
So a re- cut fourth, and then a final fifth stencil completed the print. I have to say I am completely delighted with both the finished piece and the process itself. I will do more. The next plan will be to combine this simple screen print stencil process with linocut; again thinking that it will be possible to ‘hand colour’ lino prints which can of course also be produced in the most basic of circumstances – perhaps using a craft press!
'Nuthatch' 45 x 38 cm Edition of 12 on 300gsm Somerset.