Screen printing is a skill that can take a while to master and become natural. You will, without doubt, make mistakes with your printing, and it is useful to be able to assess what has happened so you can adjust for next time. Some accidents can be happy, but sometimes you will need to decide what needs correcting to get a cleaner print next time. With this in mind it is useful to write on any unsuccessful prints what you think went wrong to create a useful reference for improving your technique. Listed below are some common problems and what may have caused them.
In most of these cases you will need to wash out your screen, front and back, let it dry and wait to start again. In the case of too much ink passing through, or excess ink being on the underside of the screen, you may be able to rectify this by making several lighter prints on newsprint to remove the excess before trying again. If this doesn’t appear to be removing the excess ink in the mesh and under the screen, wash it out and start again. Once your screen has started drying out you will have to wash your screen immediately to avoid dried ink permanently clogging up the mesh.
| Problem |
| Cause |
| Too much ink passing through |
| Pulling the squeegee too many times, or with too much pressure, or too much medium mixed with paint |
| Not enough ink passing through |
| Pulling the squeegee too lightly, or not enough times, for the fabric texture or paint colour |
| Print not even on all sides |
| Pulling the squeegee with more pressure on one side than the other |
| Screen drying out |
| Taking too long between prints, or not enough ink on the screen, or not enough medium mixed with the paint |
| Flooding through screen in parts |
| Ink sitting on exposed mesh and not clearing the design when printing |
| Printed image blurring |
| Fabric or screen movement when printing |
| Design appearing in unwanted areas |
| Paint from the design has appeared on the underside of the screen due to the above |