MOIKO Silk Screens are very delicate and should be treated with care, so putting alcohol ink on them is something I’m probably not too keen on doing. I’m using alcohol inks in the tutorial today so I’m going to show you how to use them without damaging your screens.
What MOIKO Silk Screen Should I Choose?
Great question! For this particular process I’m using one of the MOIKO Coarse Mesh Silk Screens. I’ve explored this process with some of the finer mesh screens and it just doesn’t work as well. Our aim is to get a fairly decent amount of paint to transfer to the surface of our raw clay. Also look for screens which have a fairly large design area and not just little lines.
What Paint Should I Use?
It’s important to choose an acrylic paint which will wash off your raw clay in water once it’s completely dry. I used a cheap poster paint and did some testing so I knew what paint would wash off easily and what wouldn’t.
The process involved in creating this veneer is a simple one and I’m using the paint as a resist. We all know alcohol ink will stain our clay and not wash off in water. Some paints will wash off incredibly well in water so if we use our paint as a resist, we can achieve some stunning effects. You could try a different resist product but I don’t want to risk damaging my precious screens so I’m sticking with cheap acrylic paint.
Also bear in mind the brand of clay you’re going to be use. You will need a clay which will be compatible with water in it’s raw state.
Painting Our MOIKO Silk Screen
- Run some white clay through the pasta machine on a medium thin setting and place on a sheet of scrap paper.
- Place your MOIKO Silk Screen right side up on some white clay and squeeze a small amount of white paint onto the screen.
- Use a credit card or similar to spread the paint over the screen.
- Lift your screen to the half way mark, pop it back down and squeegee over that half again. This will force more paint through the screen which is exactly what we want. Repeat this with the other side.
- Remove the screen and wash in warm soapy water straight away. Let your paint dry completely.
- Choose a selection of alcohol ink colours which you know will work together nicely.
- Drop some alcohol ink onto the surface of your clay and gently dab with your finger to blend.
- Let this dry completely.
- Pop your sheet of clay into a bowl of water and let it sit for about 10 minutes. This will soften the paint.
- Start rubbing gently and you’ll find the paint will peel away from the surface of the clay, leaving a lovely image behind.
- Dry your veneer and it’s ready to use.
- This is my finished veneer.
What About A Variation?
- Rather than washing off the paint on your clay, leave it in place and let everything dry completely.
- Pick up a very small amount of gold acrylic paint on your finger and blot so it distributes evenly on your finger tip.
- Spread over your sheet of clay very lightly. Let dry and it’s ready to use.
- Try using mica powder, chalk/pan pastels, gold alcohol ink instead of gold paint.
Important Things To Remember
- Look for a screen with a large design area and preferably choose a coarse mesh screen.
- Make sure to use an acrylic paint which washes off in water.
- Don’t rub too hard when you’re trying to remove the paint underneath the water. You may end up smudging your alcohol ink (which is okay of course).
- You don’t need a heavy application of alcohol ink, in fact less is better. Too much could seep under the paint or be smudged as you’re rubbing the surface of your clay to remove the paint.
- You could try removing your paint with sticky tape rather than dropping your clay into water. I found my clay would sometimes peel away with the sticky tape (this of course could be the type of tape I’m using).
- Play around with using sticky tape vs rubbing under water to remove your paint. Find what process works best for you.
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Have fun playing.
This is really beautiful Debbie, thanks for sharing your many talents with us.
My absolute pleasure Ida, thanks so much for getting in touch. ♥
Hi Debbie. Happy New Year! I just tried this technique with an acrylic paint that was always a little temperamental when silks screening and it worked wonderfully! I’ve just done one veneer, but the squirrel in my head is already running around with ideas for variations. Thanks so much for sharing this.
oh Karen, I’m so happy to hear you’ve had success with this one. What an awesome process hey!! Hope you have heaps and fun and create lots more lusciousness.
labindeman@gmail.com
Very good idea ! Thank you !
Instead of using acrylic paint which can prove not to melt in water (in fact, acrylic paint is meant to be like a plastic film once dried=polymerized..), we can use gouache. We’ll get rid of it easily without rubbing it because gouache melts in water even when it is dry.
Great thinking Claudine, thanks heaps for commenting here!
Clever idea to double-screen to increase texture depth, and then make such good use of the effect. Nice one! Thanks for making this free 🙂
My absolute pleasure Janet, so glad you enjoyed this one.