Art & Design; Printmaking - Screen Printing

Screen printing is a printmaking technique that involves woven mesh material which is tightly pulled to fit a frame, this then is used to support an ink blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas where the ink will take to a printable material. In order to produce an image, a squeegee is used to force ink through the mesh, at this stage the ink hits the stencil, the blocked area will be left protected from the ink and the open areas will be left filled with the ink creating an image.

Screen printing first started in China around the 960AD, this was in the Song Dynasty. The process was later adapted by other Asian countries such as Japan, the Japanese improved on the technique by modernising the techniques to keep up with their times. Screen printing made it's way other to Western Europe in the 18th Century but wasn't largely accepted until silk mesh became available for trade from the East.

For this screen print I drew a profile outline of my face onto acetate, I then cut the shape of my face out to expose a open area. I then used a frame to attach the stencil to and continued to force the ink through the mesh with a squeegee to expose the free area to the ink. I also did a reverse of this, by using the cut out and just exposing the edges around the image.

For this next piece, after I'd tested the limits of the technique initially I decided to go for my geometrical theme, I drew out some triangular shapes onto the acetate and cut them out to create my stencil. I again then proceeded to expose the open areas to the ink to create the printed pattern.

Developing this technique again I decided to try and create a geometrical design on a little larger scale, I used the same process again and I really like the final outcome, it again strengthens my idea of using geometrics. I think the process works well with the geometric idea as it allows me to lay down solid shapes, it also builds up well when other layers are applied - this is something I can take forward and develop further.

Finally, I decided to add an image of a face into the geometrical prints to try and add the link to identity into it, for this I took a reference image on a geometrical portrait. As this image was rather complex I decided to try and layer up the design with different stencils to create the final outcome, firstly I created on which would be the shape of the face, the second stencil was then to add some details in. The third stencil (which I didn't finish) was going to be the geometrical shapes to pull it all together.

I think these pieces came out extremely well, although if I was to do it again I would have 100% pushed on to try and get the geometrics added in.

The process itself is very useful, it allows me to lay down solid shapes and build up layers to create a final image, the use of layers allows me to create complex design quite easily which means I can get more detail into the pieces. The process also allows me to produce multiple versions of the same design, this will allow a final piece to be mass-produced.