Wanting to turn an artboard to a single printable layer

[dylan25809584tptk]

Hello, having used Illustrator for several years but being new to setting up screen printing files this has stumped me.

I'm trying to take this design

And be left with just everything that is currently white on a transparent background.

But my issue lies with the amount of small detail in the leaves, and where they lay under the archway. All this is currently just filled in black so usually I would go in with the shape builder and just delete those parts, but a file of this detail is new to me and I'm sure there has to be a better way.

For a bit more context if I hide some of the black it looks like this 

So I need to somehow delete all those underlying parts of the leaves without deleting the whole leaf.

If anyone has any ideas or more knowledge about screen printing files I would be greatly appreciative. I was also curious if this was even necessary or if a screen printing company could work with a vector that is white on black or black on white, but from what I've seen I don't think that's the case.

Thanks!

[Ton Frederiks]

Can't you just select all and choose Edit > Edit Colors> Invert?

White won't print anyway.

[Mike_Gondek]

Sounds like you want to screen print this as a 1-color spot white. I would make a new swatch and call it "White" .

Then select >> same fill color and change to the spot color, do the same for strokes. You can then print the separation.

Note to help see this better you can put any color in there like 1m below, as when you go to print a plate it does not care but will be easier to see then using show transparency command.

Swatches and separations are your friend in printing, so good investment to learn them.