What Is Screen Printing a T-Shirt?

Series Summary

Have you ever looked at the t-shirt designs at your local department store and thought, “I can do better than that!”? Have you ever been frustrated that you can't find any t-shirts with the name and logo of your favorite band or movie? The solution to these problems is to take matters into your own hands and start printing your own t-shirts. Then you can print whatever you want!

In this series of free crafts videos, our experienced screen printer takes you through all of the steps involved in creating a screen-printed t-shirt. Mark Kneeskern begins with on overview of screen printing basics, then discusses all of the steps involved in the process. Learn how to make a screen for your inks and a stencil with your own design. What kind of inks and fabrics should you use to get the best results? Mark answers these questions and more with a thorough discussion screen printing. He demonstrates how to apply the inks and then how to dry the shirt once it has been printed. Watch this series and you will learn a great way to customize your clothes and show off your creativity to the rest of the world!

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Mark Kneeskern on behalf of expert village, and in this clip I'm going to tell you about the purpose of screenprinting. There are lots of ideas about the purpose of screenprinting and one of them is for the fun of it, or to express your creative ideas. For instance, on this one I was just having fun. There's a legend down here about the chupacabra and so I wanted to do a screened shirt about it. So that's one reason for doing it. Also, to give gifts to your friends, and to your family on the holidays or whenever. Another reason might be to express a political statement which I've done on this shirt "kuh-bush" and that's a good way to get a message out there, or a feeling that you want to express to your friends or your community. Another reason you might to a screenprint is to support a cause. Such as the one that I'm going to screen today which is for the recycling benefit that's being held in our community. And I'm donating my time a creativity and some shirts which I bought at the thrift store and got from friends. And they're going to seel them at the recycling benefit and they'll be able to put that money back into the program. "