SCREEN PRINTING.

Also known as silk screening, hand screening, and serigraphy. Involves the use of stencils to transfer the design.

Paint is applied to a frame of stretched silk, polyester, or nylon screen and penetrates areas of the screen not blocked by the stencil pattern. By using several stencils, many colours can be added to form successive layers in a single print.

Today we use a combination of flat bed automatic printing and rotary screen printing to enable us to print high quality multi coloured and multi layed prints.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip1_ZgwnuFk rotary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BeoCO5MLsUflatbed

SCREEN PRINTING.

Brief History.

Screen printing dates back as far as the ‘Song Dynasty in China between 960 - 1279 AD. Crude methods were then adopted by other Asian countries such as Japan took hold of the idea to use silk as a mesh, with the inclusion of block printing, and advanced the process for many years.

Due to the scarcity and expense of silk in the rest of the world, screen printing took a while to find its feet, until more readily available silk mesh was available in the 1700s and interest in Western Europe began to get established as silk became cheaper.

SCREEN PRINTING.

The various methods changed throughout the years but it wasn’t until 1907 that the official screen printing technique was patented by Samuel Simon.

Samuel Simon’s patented process used a screen using “chiffon” (mesh based nylon) rather than the original silk, and the use of what he called “knotting” to block out the relevant areas. It’s here, where screen printing really takes off in terms of popularity, as demand from the rich to have custom wallpaper, or to have prints on silk and linen grows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY6BQNaZaOE

SCREEN PRINTING.

The next major advancement came in the 1910’s when Roy Beck, Charles Peter and Edward Owens introduced the use of photo-reactive chemicals to create the screens for printing, further patented by John Pilsworth.

Not long after in Britain, Lieutenant-Colonel Mayhew obtained patent rights from Mr. Pilsworth’s Selectasine and started the similarly named ‘Selecticin’ in London. News of this advancement spready quickly and the process was then adopted by numerous companies within the advertising and sign making industries.

SCREEN PRINTING.

In 1967 Michael Vasilantone, an American artist, entrepreneur, and inventor, was granted a patent for his rotatable multicolour garment screen printing machine.

The 1960’s also brought about various social movements and colourful images were made swiftly with the screen printing process and many students and artists learned this skill quickly. Artistic expression exploded with the introduction of do-it-yourself types of screen printing processes, a well-known example is Andy Warhol’s 1962 silkscreen diptych of Marilyn Monroe.

SCREEN PRINTING.

Similarly, Sister Mary Corita Kent also gained fame for her vibrant screen printed serigraphs. While brightly hued with colours of the rainbow, her images contained political aspects that encouraged peace and love.

SCREEN PRINTING.

Screen printing today.

Although the history of screen printing started out over a thousand years ago, and has undergone many changes, the essential idea remains the same and is still popular. Rather than when the process was used for producing expensive wallpaper though, today’s process is used more commonly on posters, ceramics and T-shirts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AThDbT9oKQ multi layered tshirt printing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVrMPoh86FM exposing transparent print to light