One of the reasons I started this blog was for the simple satisfaction of sharing my new discoveries within the design world as I experience them. And if not, then for the selfish reason of having a detailed time line of my own growth and being able to look back for inspiration in the present. Learning about Letterpress in my “Letterpress: Labor of Love” blog post, was an experience that has significantly enhanced my appreciation and understanding of design history, and also the modernization of such historic practices which reference type setting or indeed reinvent the practice. The same is true when I learned screen printing.
{yet another happy tangent}
These experiences that we have are naturally compared to one another and analysized in our head on degrees of relevance and perhaps fun. In my own mind I most naturally compare my design experiences to my days in College and making ceramics for 3-4 years. The act of making for me has always kept me the happiest in life so when I know my own hand is helping to create the art it becomes that much more exciting for me. Thus, my enthusiasm for learning and doing letterpress and also screen printing.
I believe this is why screen printing has more satisfaction for me in the end, rather than a digital print. Or maybe it is simply the endlessly frustrating challenge of getting a “perfect” print (which doesn’t truly exist, same is true with ceramics, and well I just love a challenge). But beyond that the quality of print is far more impressive than any digital print.
{end of psycho analysis}
SCREEN PRINTING
History
Screen printing is actually a fairly young printing process due to the photo emulsion technology that was needed, and a patent wasn’t made for it until 1907. But screen printing derived from a much older process of Woodblock Printing which dates back from 220 BC or earlier from China.
Lithography which was created in 1796 also helped in the discovery of a flat surface printing, as oppose to the previous method of engraved or etched images and letterpress technology which is on a raised surface. Lithography is the use of chemicals placed on a lithography stone which attract the ink to the positive image and a print can be made. The method has been adapted with new technologies and is used widely in commercial printing. The older process of using stone is mainly still used by artists and designers.
Early screen printing was mostly used to print expensive wallpaper and fabrics. It wasn’t until 1930 when screen printing really took off because the chemicals and technology had been improved and were much safer to use. By this time it was commercially used to print posters and also adapted by artists for its expressive qualities. The most commonly known artists being Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
Today the process is very similar with a few chemical enhancements and is increasingly more popular with artists and designers. This is because the quality of the print and artistry involved is simply unmatched to any digital printing technology.
Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967, Andy Warhol’s museum in eastern Slovak town of Medzilaborce (source: http://www.daylife.com/photo/03fF4cJ8T67lS)
Process
The basic process of screen printing uses a woven mesh and a chemical which blocks the ink from going to the printed surface in desired areas. The ink is pushed through the screen with a squeegee and the positive print is made. Layers of color can be produced with multiple screens and layering of the image.
Below is my own process of making my first screen print from the workshop Print Club London with my very talented classmate and comrade Luke Quijada. (photos courtesy of Luke Quijada)
Starting out you have a black and white image that is printed out on tracing paper or if its on normal paper you would just need to make sure to adjust the units of time the light is exposed. Once you have the printed image you can make adjustments to the print with a black marker or cut off unwanted parts. For example if your print out isn’t the greatest quality and there are small holes in the ink or there is an unwanted line or streak you can fix that before the image is imposed on the screen.
The next step that isn’t documented here, is to coat your screen with a photo emulsion and set it to dry in low light room.
Above is the UV light machine used to expose your screen. Once the screen is dry to the touch, you then can tape the printed image to the screen (image side up to emulsion). Then depending on the paper, image type and UV machine the number of units can be chosen for how long the screen is exposed for.
Then, below, you rinse off the soft emulsion which is the part of the screen that was blocked by the UV light by your image. And then set to dry.
Once the screen has been dried you can take it to the light box to fix any imperfections in your imposed image. This includes taping any holes or adding a screen blocking liquid to the unwanted holes.
And now you are ready to begin printing! Below you can see the screen is locked into place to the printing bed.
Mix up your color and put the paint at the edge of the screen in an even line.
Flood the screen with ink and then press firmly pulling the ink towards you in a quick motion to make a print. Several pulls or strokes may be necessary in order to get enough ink through the screen, but you must flood the screen after each stroke.
My first attempt at a print is below but you can see I needed to pull the ink a few more times to get it dark enough. I eventually got a few good prints in the image below.
Luke tried his hand at a multi-color pull which I think came out really nicely considering his image and the bright colors! He just placed one color beside the other on the screen and pulled the ink which blended in the middle.
Other student’s work from the workshop.
It was a really great experience over all and I highly recommend the workshop if you are interested in learning the process of screen printing.
FINAL PROJECT
For part of my final project for my Masters degree show, I wanted to make a large A1 screen print using two layers/ two colors. This was quite ambitious considering I had just learned how to screen print from the above tutorial. But none the less I worked through my frustrations and perfection issues with in 2 and a half weeks and came out with about 30 prints.
Below is the first screen I started with.
Below is the printing trouble I ran into, some prints did not have enough ink and others had too much ink coming through. With the help of the technitians and three screens later, I finally found my rhythm and also felt more at ease with some of the imperfections of printing.
Then from these prints I used a second layer and a second screen below.
Final Outcome!
2 Comments
Thanks so much for this blog, were about to start doing screen printing in my Fine Art Diploma class and this is perfect. I was wondering where you got the history of printing information from?
thanks so much Olivia! Glad you enjoyed it. You know it funny you ask that because I searched for a week for a good book on the history of screen printing but came out with none. I combed the internet as well for a good source or article but the same. so I had to resort to Wikipedia. I imagine it may be because screen printing is so young and there is only one art movement (pop art) associated with screen printing. I suppose you may have to look for the history of poster design perhaps and it could have a small section on the more modern screen printing. Good luck with your course! I hope you love screen printing as much as I do!