Screenprinted Shirts By: Remy Beckman, MAJOR: ACCOUNTING, SPONSOR: Micheal FeLS

Hi there! I'm Remy Beckman, an accounting major at Elon University. I created this project as part of The Kickbox Project in the Spring of 2025. This website is meant to walk you through the creation process and highlight what I learned.

I had a lot of help on this project from my sponsor, Micheal Fels. He helped guide me through the screen printing process, offering hands-on practice and feedback on designs quality.

Fels is currently a Professor of Art and the Chair of the Department of Art & ARH. His work can be found at: michaelfels.org

Why Shirts?

I started this project with two goals: to upcycle clothing that would otherwise be discarded and to create stylish designs. I planned to achieve this by using mainly second-hand clothing and creating fun and unique designs for the shirts.

Prototypes and pieces
This is a collection of prototypes and pieces, including test prints on unused designs, behind the scenes of the design process, the fabric and paper, a picture of my printing setup, a picture of my shower after washing out ink , and finished shirts
Materials

The materials I used were:

  • A screenprinting machine
  • T-shirts, fabric, and paper
  • Ink
  • Photo emulsion fluid
  • Screens
  • A scoop-coater
  • A squeegee
  • A UV light
  • A heat press
The Process

This segment will walk you through the process of making one of my shirts, from designing to wearing.

I start the process by coming up with design ideas. Each design takes time to conceptualize and refine. Going from rough sketches...

to first iterations...

to finalized designs ready to be used, as shown on the right.

When I'm happy with my design, I print it out on a transparent slide. This printout will act as a negative for burning the screen, leaving the black parts unburnt or "open" for ink to pass through later.

This is actually where I ran into one of my major issues. On my first attempt, I used the printout straight from the printer. But because the printer I used creates images by making several small dots.

The spaces between the small dots on the film allowed the screen to be burnt where I didn't want it to be, therefore blocking ink from passing through. This made my screen and overall design look grainy.

I was able to fix this problem by simply going over the design in black marker before burning my screen.

Then I prepare the screen for use. I coat with a UV-reactive photo emulsion. When exposed to a black-light, the emulsion will harden; this is where the transparent film with the design comes in. The transparent part will allow UV through, hardening the emulsion, but the black part of the design will keep the emulsion wet, allowing it to be washed out and creating the areas for ink to pass through.

After the design is burned in, the screen is ready to use. I place it in my screenprinting machine, ensuring the design is centered on my canvas. Then I lift the screen up, so no ink accidentally goes through on the wrong spot, apply ink above the design and then use a squeegee to drag the ink and fill my white spaces. This process is known as flooding the screen.

I then lower the screen onto my shirt and pull back the other way. This pushes the ink out of the white spaces and onto the shirt.

After the ink is dry, I use a heat press to set the image, ensuring the graphic will stay on the shirt when it's washed.

Leaving me with a finished shirt.

Another resource I found useful was this video.