Jumping out of the water for this month’s featured design is the fish-centric “Sunrise” by
Maryland-based Charm City Screen Print. The shop’s team printed the seven-color design using Wilflex plastisol inks and a 230-305 mesh range. The various brown shades within the design are a blend of red, gold and black.
“Bass fishing is popular around here and there are plenty of fishing sayings to go along with it,” says Nicholas Fiorucci, owner of Charm City Screen Print. “This piece was one of our absolute favorites.”
The design was created by one of the company’s freelance illustrators and separated manually in house. Although it’s a company-wide favorite, the design process wasn’t without its challenges.
“Since we were using our new manual [separation] process, I practiced sepping the design multiple times until I felt everything was just right,” Fiorucci says. “We weren’t burning screens each time, but I was doing side-by-side comparisons with my files. Each time, I would pick up on details that weren’t in the previous sep file. It was all part of the learning process.”
To achieve the realistic detail in the fish’s scales, Fiorucci credits the original artist’s precise attention to detail.
“Our goal was to translate that onto a T-shirt as good as possible,” Fiorucci says. “Once the separations were complete, the other part of the equation [was] in the screens. We use high-tension frames from Shur-loc and dual-cure emulsion. This combo definitely allows for high-detailed printing.” — Dustin Shrader
Design Details
Dimensions: 14″ x 15″
Screen-Printing Machine: M&R
Software: Adobe Photoshop
Ink Type: Wilflex
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