After graduate school I became disenchanted with my oil paintings and gravitated towards my other medium of concentration, serigraphy. Over the next ten years, I produced over 150 editions with at least 40 layers of colored, oil-based ink on each print. The serigraph prints were done in editions of 40 with several artist?s proofs.
Serigraphy is a printing making technique whereby a screen made of a piece of mesh stretched over a frame is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A stencil is formed by blocking off parts of the screen in the negative image of the design to be printed; that is, the open spaces are where the ink will appear on the substrate.
A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh apertures with ink, and a reverse stroke then causes the screen to touch the substrate momentarily along a line of contact. This causes the ink to wet the substrate and be pulled out of the mesh apertures as the screen springs back after the blade has passed. One color is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multicolored image or design.
