How important is screen printing in today's world? Finally, screen printing can be applied to a wide range of products, including clothing, accessories, promotional materials and more. Screen printing is also able to handle a wide variety of fabrics, including cotton, polyester, and silk, which makes it a very versatile technique. There are several main features of screen printing, including its ability to be used for mass production, the variety of colours that it can print, the durability of the print, and the cost-effectiveness of the process compared to other printing methods. A screen is created by covering a part of the screen with a stencil and then pulling or pushing a squeegee across it to transfer the ink onto the product. Screen printing is a technique for transferring images onto clothes and other products. Get your screen printing supplies here and get printing! In the meantime, what have your own experiences been with obtaining these screen printing essentials, and is there are any particular advice you would give? Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts in the comments section below.Eckersley’s stock all sorts of screen printing supplies including inks, screens, fluid mediums, carrier films, agents, emulsions, frames and of course squeegees. So, presuming you’re now suitably armed with the tools and materials that will enable you to transition into screen printing in earnest, you’ll be well-placed to follow our subsequent blog posts on such aspects of this fine-art process as the planning of an image and basic stencils. Screen printing can be an entire world of discovery Then, there is the single-bevelled profile, which tends to be counted on for printing on glass. In cases where you’ll need to lay down an especially thick layer of ink, however, such as when certain types of fabric are being printed on, you might instead turn to a round-edge or bull-nose blade. If you simply wish to screen print on paper, for instance, there’s a good chance that you’ll be using the common square-edge squeegee. As a general rule, coarser mesh is best used with lower durometer squeegees.įinally, the shape of your chosen squeegee blade will also matter, depending on the intended application. But consider the relationship between the screen mesh and the squeegee blade when making your selections, too. That leaves the harder squeegees – those of 90 or more durometer – which lend themselves best to the printing of halftones and fine detail work. In the case of most smooth paper, for instance, a mid-range squeegee durometer of about 70–80 is ideal a lower durometer, such as 50-60, describes a softer blade, which will lay down much more ink, as will be helpful when printing on a rougher surface like fabric.

It is the durometer of a squeegee that describes how hard the blade is, and therefore how flexible the squeegee is. Quite the contrary – what you’ll need is relatively simple, and can be set up nearly anywhere.

Unlike some other printing processes, screen printing doesn’t necessitate the use of highly specialised materials that can only be used in a similarly specialised environment. Its respectability enhanced further still by the 1960s Pop Art movement, screen printing has been utilised down the generations by such legendary creatives as Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Eduardo Paolozzi, Joe Tilson and Richard Hamilton.īut if you are looking to get into screen printing in the 2020s, what are the basic tools and materials that you should be sourcing first? Your screen printing essential checklist The screen-printing workshop that Velonis established with support from the WPA helped to usher in the era of screen printing as a widely accepted fine-art process.

The key development in that regard was artist Anthony Velonis adapting the commercial screen-printing process for the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which was the largest of the Great Depression-era New Deal programs in the United States.

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