Silkscreen printing or serigraphy is a technique for making exceptionally accurate fine-art prints, using hand cut, photographically or digitally made stencils.
It is the favoured technique of many fine artists for making multiples of their work, as the process allows them to have an exceptional amount of involvement of every stage in the process, so that the end product is more in the nature of an original work than a reproduction.
The screens used in silkscreen printing are now made from a polyester fine weave material, stretched over a rectangular frame. Areas of its surface are masked off with a non-permeable photostencil or painted out with a masking fluid. This forms a positive stencil - the areas not masked out are where the printed image will appear.
The image to be reproduced is separated out into individual colours, and a stencil is made for each colour by masking out the areas on the screen where you want the ink not to print.
Say you wanted to make a silkscreen of the image below.
You would need to make one silk screen stencil for each of the colours as follows. The black areas show what you would mask out with masking film or masking fluid. The white areas you would leave unmasked so that ink can pass through the screen onto the paper.
Black stencil
Blue Stencil
Red Stencil
Yellow stencil
The stencils are made by separating out each colour from an original painting either photographically, digitally or by hand (this is done either by the artist or a specialist stencil maker) and translating it mechanically onto light-sensitive film, which then bonds with the silk screen and masks out the areas where the colour doesn't appear.
This masked screen is then placed onto a dense, fairly thick paper. Coloured ink, colour-picked by the artist or mixed carefully to be identical to the original work, is pushed through the screen with a squeegee, leaving a sharp edged shape or shapes where the unmasked areas of screen are.
The inks can be made more or less transparent to allow other colours to show through, thus increasing the range of colours and effects achievable – so for example a green area could be created by printing a transparent layer of blue over a layer of yellow. Where there was no yellow layer underneath the transparent blue, you’d get a pale blue effect, as the white of the paper would show through.
Individual screen stencils are made for each colour in the finished print, and printed one on top of the other until the image is complete.
The print can then be glazed or have a topical substance such as glitter or gold leaf applied to the surface.
The examples given above are very simple images; but advances in photographic and digital imaging mean that incredibly detailed and intricate images can be made as silkscreen prints, as demonstrated in the example below.
Once the print is finished, the artist approves each copy, and authenticates it by signing and numbering it, either along the bottom of the image or on the back.
It is the favoured technique of many fine artists for making multiples of their work, as the process allows them to have an exceptional amount of involvement of every stage in the process, so that the end product is more in the nature of an original work than a reproduction.
The screens used in silkscreen printing are now made from a polyester fine weave material, stretched over a rectangular frame. Areas of its surface are masked off with a non-permeable photostencil or painted out with a masking fluid. This forms a positive stencil - the areas not masked out are where the printed image will appear.
The image to be reproduced is separated out into individual colours, and a stencil is made for each colour by masking out the areas on the screen where you want the ink not to print.
Say you wanted to make a silkscreen of the image below.
You would need to make one silk screen stencil for each of the colours as follows. The black areas show what you would mask out with masking film or masking fluid. The white areas you would leave unmasked so that ink can pass through the screen onto the paper.
Black stencil
Blue Stencil
Red Stencil
Yellow stencil
The stencils are made by separating out each colour from an original painting either photographically, digitally or by hand (this is done either by the artist or a specialist stencil maker) and translating it mechanically onto light-sensitive film, which then bonds with the silk screen and masks out the areas where the colour doesn't appear.
This masked screen is then placed onto a dense, fairly thick paper. Coloured ink, colour-picked by the artist or mixed carefully to be identical to the original work, is pushed through the screen with a squeegee, leaving a sharp edged shape or shapes where the unmasked areas of screen are.
The inks can be made more or less transparent to allow other colours to show through, thus increasing the range of colours and effects achievable – so for example a green area could be created by printing a transparent layer of blue over a layer of yellow. Where there was no yellow layer underneath the transparent blue, you’d get a pale blue effect, as the white of the paper would show through.
Individual screen stencils are made for each colour in the finished print, and printed one on top of the other until the image is complete.
The print can then be glazed or have a topical substance such as glitter or gold leaf applied to the surface.
The examples given above are very simple images; but advances in photographic and digital imaging mean that incredibly detailed and intricate images can be made as silkscreen prints, as demonstrated in the example below.
Brendan Neiland, Beijing Garden 2005
Once the print is finished, the artist approves each copy, and authenticates it by signing and numbering it, either along the bottom of the image or on the back.