All About Thermofax Screens


Lyric Kinard makes all my screens. She is fast, inexpensive and very professional. I purchased a few of her screens which you can see here. These are her ammonite images. 
Later I wanted to make my own images and have her burn the screens for me. Some of mine were very simple like this one:


This was simply a scribbled circle with a fiber tipped pen which I scanned and Lyric burned into a thermofax screen.


Here I added these fine line circles in the open areas of the soy wax silk screen from a few days ago

FIRST: Why do I want a thermofax screen?? ONLY a thermofax screen with give you a printable image WITH FINE DETAIL. You can make a stamp of a bold image but only a thermofax will give you fine details like this:

 My photo
 Screen Lyric made


Now this is how I prepare an image to send to Lyric



This is a new series I am working on so now I have ruined the surprise (smile).
I have opened a jpg file of the image I want


I go to Filter on Photoshop, then adjustments, then threshold


In the box on the lower right there is a slide bar which you can slide left and right until the image is the way you want it to appear on the thermofax screen.

  HINT: Try to avoid big black blobs and go for as much FINE detail as you can. I did have to fidget with my image a bit using the contrast setting but I ended up with a wonderful image.


Lyric, you can be expecting this in an email from me later in the month along with many others of milkweeds.


I always buy mine as images only. Here are the reasons. The frames are bulky and they add to the prices. I'd rather have more screens for my buck!!

Now - How to frame your thermofax images




The image of a bee (never used) on the paper on which Lyric made her carbon based toner copy which is the only way to burn a screen.


Gorilla Tape
Buy it; it's worth it.


Make sure the back and front edges of the tape touch (stick to themselves)





The rough (textured) side of the screen always faces up. Make THAT side of the screen so that when you see writing, you know the rough side is facing up. I also label each screen and draw an arrow with the image in the "up" position. This helps eliminate the chances of not noticing and printing you image upside down.


 And now that I finished this tutorial I happened to notice on Lyrics website many tutorial about framing and using thermofax screen (duh!)

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