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Screen Printing
is Dope!
And Easy, Too!
Screenprinting is a process where ink is forced through a mesh screen onto a surface. Making certain areas of the screen impervious to printing ink creates a stencil, which blocks the printing ink from passing through the screen. The ink that passes through forms the printed image.
A printing screen consists of a fine mesh fabric that is tightly stretched and attached to a metal or wooden
frame. Traditionally these screens were made of silk, but today they are most often made of synthetic
materials such as terylene.
Stencils, which can be composed of a wide variety of materials, including
contact paper, greasy paint, or a design on a transparency, can be applied to the screen in different ways:
placing them directly onto the surface of the screen, painting them onto the screen, or by transferring a
design onto the screen using a photo-sensitive emulsion.
Once the screen has been prepared, it is placed in hinges affixed to a board or screenprinting table, which
has hinges at the top and holes in the surface that allow a vacuum to hold a sheet of paper in place during
printing. A thick bead of ink is applied along the top of the inside of the screen and then pulled evenly
across the image using a squeegee, an action known as "flooding the screen."
A sheet of paper is then placed
under the screen, and with another pass of the squeegee the ink is pushed through those areas of the screen
that are not blocked by the stencil. As a result, the artist's design is printed directly onto their desired
substrate in a fuctional, and nearly infinitely repeatable manner.
Because of the repeatable nature of the artform, screen prints can contain as many layers as the artist wants, leading to endless possibilities. Below are some examples of screen prints by different artists. Note the varying intricacies, and the way each artist has utilized the graphic nature of the artform to their advantage.
Examples of Fine Art Screenprinting
Spring Breeze - Mt. Fuji, by Hideaki Kato born 1954.
Storyville III, by Mayumi Oda born 1954
Abstract, by Tetsuro Sawada born 1935.
Owl, by Yukio Katsuda born 1941.