Non - Narrative Illustration - Product / Skateboard Deck / Screen Printing

After I looked at Baker Skateboards on Instagram and realised one of the members designed a Nick Cave skateboard deck. This gave me the idea to design one myself. My idea was to just have writing and a small image on the skateboard. Most decks have text in the centre and then an image, from what I've seen online and in skate shops.

I bought a small cheap skateboard from Argos and bought some Molotow Spray Acrylic in white and sprayed the whole underside of the deck white.

I then screen printed the 'Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds' logo which I have on my vinyl cover etc. 

Process - (I would have liked to have taken process photos but I didn't have a camera at the time) I printed my image out onto 2 pieces of acetate and taped them together. This is so that the black is the blackest I could possibly get it so it exposed properly. The next step was to prepare my screen for printing. I used a screen with 90 thread count which has small holes which allows me to get a fair bit of detail. I used the jet wash to wash the screen before putting on the emulsion. After putting it into the drying shelves to dry I then took it into the dark room to put on the emulsion. To do this I used a small trough filled with light exposing emulsion and dragged it up the screen so all of the screen was covered. I then put it in the drying shelves again. Once it was dry I took it back into the dark room and exposed it. To do this I took my positive and placed it face down on the exposure unit with the safe light on. I then positioned my screen on top and closed the uni lid. I then turned off the safe light and turned on the suction. The suction function is so that the positive it flush with the screen so when I expose it there is no extra exposed spaces that aren't needed. When the vacuum finished I turned on the exposure light until the timer was done and then turned off the vacuum and opened the lid of the exposure unit. I then had to jet wash the screen so the emulsion that was exposed drops out and I am left with the image I want to print. I then again put it in the drying shelves until it was ready to print. Once it was dry I taped up the areas that were exposed that I didn't want printing (e.g the edges of the screen) with gum tape. It was then ready to print. Because I was printing onto a skateboard deck I didn't use a clamp so our print technician, Jade, Held the skateboard as I used a squeegee to pull the ink down the screen to print it. After printing it was time to clean the screen. There are three chemicals to use on the screen to take off the emulsion and thoroughly clean the threads.  

Once the screen printing ink was dry I bought some fake blood and mixed it with printing medium to make sure it would stick to the skateboard surface and I had a friend who had bigger ahandsthan me, paint his hand and make a print onto the deck, over the text. He explained to me that placing the hand print over the text makes it pop more. I think it worked out really well and I am very pleased with it. I think that this would sell well because after researching Baker Skateboards and finding that someone already designed a Nick Cave board I knew it would be something that could sell to my audience,