OK.
After trying the block printing method and actually really enjoying it, I still couldn't get the look I was going for. My problem is line quality. In film school, it drove me bonkers if I made a line too thick or too thin. I would toss the entire drawing, no matter how long I had put into it.
Block printing was basically the worst for this fear of mine. Again, I really loved the process, and it was so hands-on and intimate. I really loved it. I will probably do some special releases down the road of straight block prints - we'll see.
I turned my attention to screen printing, which I knew a lot about but had never done it myself before, simply because I knew how messy and involved it really was. I wanted to dig in, though, and downsize the operation to fit my space.
I planned out and built and full unit to store, expose, dry, and ultimately print on. It ended up being a small table on wheels, really. I installed a UV light inside so I could expose the screens. Then dry them. I built my own screens and stretched the fabric myself. I loved doing all this.
Now the problems came. First, to clean the screen, let it dry, coat the screen, let it dry, print the design on transparency, expose the screen, wash it out powerfully, let it dry. If the exposure was too strong or too weak, the screen would need to be scrubbed clean, dried, re-coated, dried, and exposed all over again - and we are talking barely seconds of exposure to ruin a screen and start over. It was a lot.
While setting up and testing, I had to redo a ton of screens a ton of times. It took its toll, and I was getting discouraged and thinking I might never get the perfect screen burn simply because there were so many factors involved - how thick was the coating, how long was the exposure, such simple things, but with massive consequences.
The plus side, I loooooved the way it was all turning out when I nailed it all. Again, I loved the actual process of it all, and I feel like it separated the 'men from the boys' in a way because it was an entire process most people couldn't or wouldn't take on.
Ultimately, I wanted to do something of a print-on-demand type thing, so I wasn't sitting on hundreds of pre-printed tees - even if I was doing them myself, it wouldn't make sense. I quickly realized even with my own mini setup, it was a ton of waste - from inks to time - to get an order and print one tee.
So this made me stop and think as well. Also at this time, I had a few major life events happening. Mainly, my wife's passing meant this whole thing was going to be paused for a bit as I figured out the next steps for my son and I.