My name is Randy DeVries aka Randy Raintree
After a few years in Europe and a winter in the Alaskan Bush, my love of photography/darkroom work and chemistry lead me to screen printing
I started my company in 1980
With some door hinges for a press, fluorescent tubes for an exposure unit, and a heat transfer press for dryer.
I didn't own a screen printed shirt and had never even met a screen printer prior to starting Raintree.
I read what little was available and just jumped in
-sort of like the Alaskan Bush
About 1983 I started to offer wholesale printing to the less talented local screen printers and resellers.
Still had hinges, heat press and changed the fluorescent to Ultraviolet rich fluorescent tubes and in a 4' x 4' exposure unit. Offered printing on glass, metal,magnetic signs, wood, stickers and some garments
I had begun doing a little wildlife serigraphy on black paper, but didn't continue since there was more money in printing other things
About 1984 I acquired Consumers Energy's shut down screen printing shop equipment in exchange for 1 year of printing community theater posters and hauling away a fairly large amount enviromentally unfriendly inks
-I printed the posters for free for about 10 years.
Their old 3000 watt Metal Halide exposure system helps me hold the finest detail with lots of control over imaging my printing frames
About 1987 I dropped wholesaling to other printers
Created my first full color garment print, a full color budweiser beer bottle from newspaper clip art, blown up 300% and printed on a red nylon jacket - coarse dot and beautiful.
About 1989 I added my first computer and software.
First question was which software platform apple or IBM with windows 286 on floppy disks
Actually it was a slam dunk to decide
Mac came with one font and others were available for $70 each
CorelDraw came with 150 fonts, a photo editing program and a vector trace conversion program and cost less, much less than the Mac photo program with one font.
About 1990 I started offering Low Cost Full Color Printing Using CorelDraw
144 white 6oz shirts printed in full color on one side for $2.95 each with no art or setups
In 2003 I was at about $450,000 a year in sales 40% locally and 60% nationally, with about 4 accounts in Japan.
In 2005 Got Divorced, turned away most of my accounts except some favorite national nonprofit groups, moved north and started working out of a much smaller place back in the woods.
Here it is 2011 and I am finally ready to start doing more photographic based serigraphy and less of the boring "athletic style printing" that dominates the screen printing world
A customer sent me this design for a one color print on a dark shirt
I knew I had to do something else so I started with a lion's photo
After about 20 hours of experimentation I came up with this
Which was then translated to this on the shirt
HERE IS A PHOTO OF MY SHIRT AFTER 20+ WASHES
When I printed it I was at a loss for words - It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever printed
On that day, my shop turned into my studio
I am looking forward to trying this approach on black glass
PHOTO -Randy DeVries circa 1970 developed and printed in my homemade darkroom on very outdated paper. Always looking for a bargain, even then.
Raintree
17730 Pierce Rd
Stanwood MI 49346
800 763-1985
primary contact email
randy@rescueshirts.info