Silkscreen

     Silkscreen printing, or serigraphy, is an artistic process that involves printing an image using stencils.  Paint is usually either squeegeed on or rolled across the stencil and reaches the image material only through the mesh (made of anything from human hair to silk to polyester to nylon or stainless steel mesh) within the gaps of the stencil.  It was of course first used in Asian countries like China and Japan to use with block printing and hand painting to yield different effects and was later introduced in Europe where it was popular as a way to make expensive wallpaper and to print on fine linens and silks.  They even created photo reactive stencils using originally toxic bicharmates—though the chemicals used today are much less dangerous.  With this photo emulsion technique, you can get a very detailed image based off a photograph.  Nowadays, screen printing designs on t-shirts is very popular. 

      As for the stencil itself, it can be made of a lot of different things and doesn’t even have to be a separate object from the mesh.  It can be something cut out and placed over the mesh or the screen can be blocked off with a non-permeable material that prevents the paint from getting through and sometimes this material can be removed so the screen can be reused.

        One of the best things about screen printing is that it is so versatile it can be used for many things, especially in the commercial industry, like with electronics, fabric prints, billboards, sports equipment graphics, and many other things.  

Silkscreen artists:

Roy Lichtenstein:

Some of the best and most famous expressions of silkscreen art were the pop art created by Roy Lichtenstein.  In fact a couple of his prints are often hanging up somewhere in the school here.  His work is a very clean-edged, comic-book style that focused on a unique sort of parody type humor.  Comic books are often printed with a serigraphic technique.

 

Doug West:

Doug West is an artist that creates beautiful serigraphs based on the great skies and environment of the Southwest.  His images to me seem to capture the simple yet beautiful aspects of nature and the technique of serigraphy.

Charles Fazzino:

Another artist dealing in pop art serigraphs, his art is famous for its 3 dimensionality and fun style.  He’s featured mostly cities and Broadway landscapes, as well as characters from Disney and Batman and comic-book type characters of his own making.