All about silkscreens

Also known as silk-screening or serigraphy, silkscreen printing involves using a tightly-stretched mesh or screen (hence the name!).

The first step is to mount the silkscreens over your chosen canvas, with a separate screen for each colour. Once the screens or stencils are in place, artists roll, press, sponge or squeegee their ink or paint over the silkscreens to leave a design.

Other materials – including polyester mesh, nylon threads and even stainless steel – can be used in the process. Different types of mesh size will determine the outcome and look of the finished piece.

An artform in its own right, it is a painstaking process that is completed by highly-skilled craftsmen and can take months. As it’s done by hand, each piece is unique. After isolating the colour, the chromist hand-mixes the colour by sight to match the original – unlike giclée printing, which can be manipulated digitally. The ink in silkscreen printing is also often thicker, resulting in more vibrant colours.

Along with James Francis Gill, some of our other popular artists – including Bob Dylan, Simon Claridge and Billy Schenck – have used the silkscreen process to enhance their work.

For his new After Warhol: Uniques collection of original silkscreens, Paul Stephenson transformed Warhol's iconic 'Jackie' artwork, which was originally created in 1964. Watch him at work in our video below!