Students sat quietly in the art studio as they busily scribbled away on their art notebooks to get ideas for their silkscreen projects. 

There was a constant sound of tape ripping as the students worked on their silkscreens in a classroom surrounded by colorful paintings, detailed sketches, and several canvases.

Ms. Megan McEntire, the teacher for the “Silk Screen” Interim Term class, encouraged her students to think outside the box for ideas. Joy, sadness, and persistence were some of her prompts.

Ms. McEntire said she has always loved teaching printmaking.

“I love the way that silkscreen makes you work with solid shapes and that you have to have an idea of your outcome before you even start your very first step,” Ms. McEntire said.  “In a way, there’s some reverse engineering that has to happen and it’s different and less immediate than some of the other art forms.”

Ms. McEntire said that silkscreen is different from other art forms because it involves thinking of the outcome before you begin the first step. 

“It’s printing things with ink, and I like it because I like art, and it makes me use my mind,” said freshman Courtney Whittaker. 

The process is to first put on gloves before applying the ink. Second, artists put paper on the wooden flat surface of a silkscreen board. Then, they get a squeegee and slide it from the top to the bottom of the board. 

Ms. McEntire told her students not to wash the silkscreen afterward because everyone shares silkscreens.

“I am taking this class because I hope to take away new knowledge of a type of art that no one has ever really done before,” freshman Grace Essalih said.

Ms. McEntire explained why she decided to teach silkscreen as an Interim Term class instead of during the normal school year.

“I found that printmaking was harder to do unless you had a large amount of time in class. If I had uninterrupted hours I could do better with it,” she said.