This past semester at Fleisher, I teamed up with Liz Latham who teaches the teen Digital Photography course on Saturdays upstairs from where the screenprinting studio is. We arranged for our students to collaborate as designers and production team to create 2 layer graphic Tshirts. Her students took photos and manipulated their images in photoshop to make them bolder and more contrasted for print. My students designed background symbol layers to print in color. It was an interesting process of brainstorming, voting, and working together. I burned the screens with the teens' designs on Thursday and we were able to finish all the printing on Saturday.
The images were mixed and matched, and the images turned out quite interesting depending on which symbol they were printed on.
The meerkats and graffiti over the happy face is my favorite. In fact, I went and bought a Tshirt for myself today so I can print the graffiti one. (The great benefit to photo screens over paper stencils- the image can be reprinted easily!)
Of course the one drawback to photo screens is the extra prep time I spend coating, exposing, and then after printing having to reclaim them. Ah well- definitely worth it this time! These are the best T-Shirts I've seen my young screenprinters make yet! Collaboration is key. Talking them through symbolic imagery was extremely helpful. Democracy in action in my classroom studio! Can't wait for our next session. I have 2 morning screenprinting camps being offered in July at Fleisher. One is for 11-13 year olds and the other for 14-18 year olds.
Go sign your kids up!
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