Decals, Screen-prints and Frustration

I started a while back learning the process of decals and found Justin Rothshank’s website which provided a huge amount of information. Useful information which went from the start of the image process to the final product. Having found his website at the beginning of my decal journey to incorporating my own photography into my pottery I thought this was the norm for finding information on new processes.

That was a mistake on my part and a rather arrogant mindset that I should be able to find whatever information I needed without doing the work and testing to find if it fit my needs.

Starting with both a DVD and a book from well-known potters who create decals from ceramic underglazes I had a pretty good grasp of the process AFTER the screen print was created. This is
where my problems rose up. Neither the book nor the DVD explained in any detail how to prepare the image. No troubleshooting for my particular needs.

Now mind you, I’m still in the mindset at this point that the information should be easy to find if you just look and now that I’ve actually paid money for something to help me learn then they should be able to answer my questions. Frustration set in when messages on Facebook and emails went  unanswered. It didn’t matter that I didn’t even know the correct question to ask. I needed help and wanted it now. I was pretty cranky.

I started scouring all the screenprinting sites and YouTube video’s I could find and came across one small tutorial from wegraphics.net showing how to turn a photo into a screen printed graphic. That started my journey into what I needed to do to prepare one of my photographs for screen-printing.

I’m still just at the beginning of my journey but now have a clear goal in sight so it allowed me to
take a look at my expectations and see I was not really fair and the expectation of responding just because I purchased a book or DVD is not reasonable. Going to a workshop and asking those questions is reasonable and if either of the two potters has a workshop near my home I will guarantee I’ll do my best to get there!

In the next couple of weeks I’ll put some pictures together to share a little more detail in hopes that I
can pay it forward to make up for my greediness for knowledge and to help alleviate someone else going through the same frustrations I have experienced so far.