guerilla silk screening

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i thought i’d share the method i use to produce the designs i’ve silk screened. (well, for the skeleton costume i used cardboard, an exacto, masking tape and spray paint, but this way produces a cleaner image).

my friend and mentor taught me “guerilla silk screening,” though those words don’t seem to turn up the right method in a google search.

here’s a good DIY Screen Printing tutorial of almost the same process. the artist in this video and i have different ink application methods. i apply a “bead” of ink (thick line of ink) above the image and pull it down in bands, once or at most twice, using a 1.5 in-long squeegee made of styrofoam take-out box or cardboard. also, she refers to “polyester lining” as a good fabric for making a screen. i use voile, a cheap material used as a window treatment. i would recommend using voile and the pull-down method because it yields a pronounced, crisp design.

ALSO! don’t forget to heat-set the ink with an iron to prevent it from fading (that is, if the directions specify that you should do this.) i’ve seen shirts that haven’t been heat-set. after a few washes the designs fade significantly.

 

one reason I like playing twine games…

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After Playing Reset by Lydia Neon I realized how much I fucking love playing well-crafted twine games.

Playing twine games requires skill….really…it does.

Good twine not only engages me as literature, but as a unique medium which requires a unique palette of skills to be enjoyed thoroughly. It rewards a kind of reading that I’ve never employed elsewhere.

In the twine world I am alert. I am feeling in the dark for corners and walls and passageways with my hands.

This is not something I do slowly. If I move too slowly, I falter; I cease to feel the forward motion of the game.

I scan to see if I’ve been in a passage-place before, knowing that if I do not read carefully enough, I will miss entire branches of the story, or as is the case with Reset, or howling dogs, or other games with beautiful tucked-away endings, I could miss beating the game. I emphasize “enough” because that “enough” differentiates twine reading from other kinds of reading. When the enough is reached and the certainty bell dings, I can move on. That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that I’ve read every familiar word again or as carefully as I did the first time I saw it.

This scanning feels great because it invokes a place in my mind that is deeper than working memory. I feel like I’ve gained “expertise” of a kind in a particular game. When I visit a passage that is familiar but sneakily different from previous passages I sense both the unique and the familiar as quickly as, well, as I’ve said elsewhere, as a skilled guitar player tunes a guitar–without faltering, without second-guessing. I just feel the node map grow and come together in my mind unto a point of deeply satisfactory completion.

My eyes jump to the newness and my cursor darts to fresh links.

However, this scanning process is pleasurable in all twine games, be they linear or elaborately branched.

Scanning is an aesthetic experience. How fast does it take me to feel out the structure of the game? What level of care on my part is required to assess whether I’ve been to a passage before? Can I anticipate whether a link will take me to a new place or to a familiar one?

My games, and many good twine games, (Marras’ mom is home, and swampmaiden’s Spending Money come to mind) are more deliberately linear and/or quick to feel out. And that is part of their character. They feel open. Transparent. Spacious.

So I would encourage you to play more than one twine game (preferably more than two) to get a sense of what I mean. This pleasure compounds with the number of great games you play.