Cutting out stencils for Screen Printing

Over the past couple of days, I had been creating different designs for my screen prints; the next part to this process was turning these drawn designs into stencils. Using newsprint paper, a very particular, thin paper used specifically for screen printing- I traced my drawings onto this paper, which I then cut out using a stanley knife. This part of the project, was quite interesting, as I was able to sort of see what our designs would look like turned into prints.

However, this process did come with many obstacles on the way firstly; I had to take extra care in cutting out the stencils, as the paper was so fine that it kept tearing quite often whilst I was cutting it- which became rather frustrating. Another challenging aspect of this process, was making sure that I cut the right part of the stencil; quite often I would accidentally cut out the wrong part of the stencil- leaving it to look completely different as to what I had hoped. Lastly, including detail into my stencils was quite difficult, as I had to be very precise- but I also felt quite limited as to how much detail I could include, as I knew that the paper would rip when it is printed, if it was too detailed.

I am still optimistic about screen printing next week, and I have produced around ten stencils already, most of which I am very proud of. However, I did find that cutting out the stencils today was very challenging, as the paper is so fine, and it was very difficult for me to include detail in my work, as I am not very experienced with this process. I am also still rather nervous about how these stencils will look once they are printed out eventually, as I have never done screen printing before.