ok i’m really bummed that i JUST found my camera that’s been missing for a week or more – i wanted to photodocument getting to know my yudu better! it was gonna be perfect… photos of us taking long walks on the beach, romantic candlelit dinners, canoodling at the movies – but instead you get just boring old stupid words!

except sometimes my words have been known to be at least a little entertaining.

but still. the plans i had for the pictures.

ugh. i’m buildig a bridge and getting over it!

so as i mentioned before, my superawesome amazing faboo rad honkytonk husband josh surprised me (us, we’re sharing it, i keep forgetting that!) with one of those spanky new fancy yudu machines a couple of weeks ago! and i was so busy getting ready for Unique LA and workin on freelance projects on top of freelance projects that i juuuuuust got to crack that baby open last night!

i have to tell you that i’ve done the regular way of screenprinting before, and i was a tiny bit skeptical the first time i saw a yudu. it’s by the same people that brought you the cricut, which is great for scrapbookers but not so much for people that wanna make their own die cut designs… i don’t wanna be rude but my first impression was i kinda thought that it would be a very lowest common denominator type thing that would make low quality stuff for folks who just don’t wanna be bothered with learning how to really screenprint. then i saw the yudu display at michaels, and started reading labels and kinda learning more about it, and had to tell josh very sheepishly “uh hey i know when you mentioned it i said it was dumb, but, uh, i kind of really super want a yudu. like really bad. so uh… sorry, and my birthday’s coming up in july hint hint”…

and he ended up buying it early thank god! so far i am a total screenprinting convert and i’ll tell you why:

1) crap on the yudu is all the same steps as traditional screenprinting but easier (once you get the hang of it). there’s still emulsion and darkroom scenarios, but it’s less time consuming!

2)if you mess up on burning a screen, it doesn’t take a crapload of work and scrubbing to reclaim your screen – it takes like a minute. in your kitchen sink. while you hum to yourself. i have old-school wood frame screenprinting screens that haven’t turned out right (from like YEARS ago) that i still haven’t reclaimed because it’s a huge pain in the rear!

3) as far as i can tell so far, the quality of the actual screens and supplies isn’t inferior to old-school screenprinting. they say don’t use any other inks but yudu inks, but i did find a website that tested using riso inks (like for the gocco) on the yudu screens and it worked fine. and they’re cheaper. i’ll be testing using the speedball fabric screenprinting ink i normally use in the future, will letcha know how that goes!

if you’ve never seen a yudu before totally check out the demo from handmade detroit, it’s a good one!

so here’s how burning the screens for the first time worked out for me: i burned some screens after watching the demo video and following yudu’s specific directions and none of those screens turned out right. i reclaimed the same screen like 3 or 4 times. and then i got tired. later i came back to it, tried a few different things, and EVERY screen came out effing perfect.

so without further ado, here’s my tutorial tips on how to prepare the perfect yudu screenprinting screen for exposing!

1) mood lighting: keep your lights dim the entire time so you don’t forget what you’re doing and ruin your emulsion sheet! i wrecked one by going into the kitchen to get something and flipping on a light – FAIL!

2)wet it and forget it: forget about the “dont get the screen too wet” part of yudu’s instructions. i ran my screen under the kitchen faucet from the front and reverse side. then i wipe off the extra drippy water from the metal screen edges.

3) lay it on me sistahpants! so now (IN YOUR DIMLY LIT ROOM!!! NO DIRECT LIGHTING!) take your emulsion sheet and peel the plastic sheet off the side that comes off easy – then put it sticky side down on the back of your screen (the flat side), being careful to center it as you lay it down. (can’t tell which is the sticky side? lick your finger and touch a corner, you’ll figure it out real quick!) run your squeegee down it lengthwise, and then widthwise making sure to press out all the air bubbles.

then comes my special trick to make sure it’s wet enough – holding it in your hand, look at the screen from the opposite side. lightly lightly spray that other side a couple of times with a water bottle, and run your squeegee once lengthwise along the screen. (from that side you just sprayed).

at this point, the green emulsion should look really even on both sides. if you’ve got any areas that look splotchy (they call it spiderwebby) you’re not going to have a good end result. it should look really good and clean and even after doing my special trick. if not, try misting it again from that reverse side.

note: if your emulsion looks effed up before you dry it and expose it, you will end up with a bad screen. best to try again with a fresh sheet instead of going through the whole process to find out later it didn’t turn out how you wanted it.

also note: drying time for my techniques is significantly longer than following yudu’s instructions to the letter, but the results have been great every time.

also also note: your mom called and told me you’re out of the family. sorry!

so the rest of it is business as usual following yudu’s instructons:

4)dry that crap! after your emulsion looks lovely, put that screen in the drying rack and run the fan on it! using my method with more wetness involved, i think i averaged three to four 20-minute dry cycles before the screen was dry enough for exposing. you’ll know when it’s dry enough when it looks really even (and not wet at all) on both sides. test it by picking the plastic backing off the emulsion in a corner and peeling a tiny bit of it off. if it comes off really easy you’re done! if it doesn’t DON’T FORCE IT! put that thing back in the dryer and let it dry!

5) picture perfect pictures! ok one thing i tried from my old-school screenprinting techniques is i ran outta yudu transparencies, so i used vellum instead to print my image on. and i don’t know if it was because that was a screen i did at like 2am and i think i messed up a bunch of things or what, but the vellum did NOT work at all. so don’t do it! i do really like the yudu brand transparencies – they have a little bit of a tooth to em, so the images don’t get all smeary when they come outta my inkjet printer.

from that point on i did pretty much everything to yudu’s specifications – exposed the image for 9 minutes instead of 8 cuz i like to go the extra mile just to be sure, rinsed out the screen with cold water, and every one i’ve done since i started following these techniques has come out AWESOME.

oh wait one more thing. when you’re done burning your screen and you’ve rinsed the unexposed green gunk out, i don’t think it’s necessary to use the yudu’s fan for drying it. if you’ve got the time just blot off the excess water and set it up against a wall for a bit to dry. if you don’t got the time hairdryer that crap!

another exciting thing i wanna share about the yudu is that i have a graphic i designed like 4 years ago that i’ve tried burning to screens the old fashioned way like 4 or 5 times with zero success because the line work was a little fine and frankly i’m not the best screen-burner in town. but following the above techniques i was FINALLLY able to get a clean burn of that image onto the screen and i am really effing excited about that! because it’s pure comedy and it makes me chuckle!

so anyways, that’s it for tonight – i’ll be testing out the printing tomorrow, and like i said i found my camera so expect to see pics of the screens i burned and the printing process! pow!