We have a Screen Printing Special for you this week. We are focusing on our Red Door artists with a passion for the printing process, and in particular screen printing!
Screen printing actually originated in China and Japan way back around 220 AD and was initially used to create designs on fabric – back then screens were sometimes woven from hair! By the time the 20th Century came along screen printing had become a tool for commercial printing and a favourite printing method among famous fine artists such as Peter Blake, Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg in the groovy 1960s!
The screen printing process involves a silk or synthetic fabric being stretched across a frame to create the ‘screen’. To create the print a stencil made from either paper, glue or a light sensitive resist is applied to the screen. This blocks the ink from passing through specific parts of the screen on to the paper beneath as the ink is spread across with a rubber blade called a Squeegee. Lift up the screen and behold – the first layer of the screen print! Of course, every artist will have a different approach to the screen printing process!
Screen prints are pleasingly tactile and lovingly hand made by dedicated artists who love keeping traditional print making alive! It was hard to choose with many fine printers selling their work with us at The Red Door Gallery but here are some brilliant artists to inspire with their contemporary screen printing styles!
Patrizio Belcampo is a fantastic print maker based in Edinburgh. This screen print is N for Nightingale and part of his on going Avian Alphabet project which is a marvellous display of screen printing prowess! A multi layered screen print with beautiful lays of flat, perfectly mixed colour – very hard to achieve as even pressure must be applied to the Squeegee with each pull across the screen. A master screen printer with a strong passion for technique, Belcampo has exhibited his print works in various galleries in Scotland, among which the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts. Belcampo is widely regarded as a highly skilled and impressive artist print maker with prints featured as part of the Venice Biennale in the World exhibition of 2011, hosted by the Arsenale in Venice and the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh.
A member of the Edinburgh Printmakers, Patrizio has produced his wonderful work in Edinburgh since 2005 and we have continued to stock his beautiful and technically superb screen prints at our gallery where you must see them for yourself!
Laurie Hastings is an illustrator and print maker. She was born and raised in Hong Kong and educated in Edinburgh and London. Hastings now produces her lovely art work from her studio in Nottingham and creates limited edition silk screen prints . This is Forest by Laurie Hastings, a beautifully tranquil screen print which uses soft colours and intricate, lineal details. Such fine lines are always tricky to perfect in screen printing because you can never be sure if the ink will pass through the screen flawlessly – but Laurie has achieved a perfect finish!
This Flamingo Tote Bag is a great example of textile screen printing by Fiona Hamilton. Screen printing is also used by textile designers to transfer designs to material and create beautiful patterns and motifs for bags, clothes and accessories! As well as these super hand printed Tote Bags Fiona Hamilton creates fantastic art prints too and her work is inspired by lots of natural themes – flowers, leaves, trees and creatures, especially birds! Her compositions are made directly from nature or from her own photography. Hamilton has a wealth of knowledge in traditional print making and has worked with a lot of screen printing in recent years! Do make sure to peruse Hamilton’s wonderfully colourful and animal-tastic screen prints too!
Louise Smurthwaite is an artist and illustrator living in Edinburgh. She makes objects and prints based around the places she has travelled, imagined and remembered and her specialty is screen printing! Louise graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2008 and we stock her wonderfully, colourful prints in all kinds of sizes – vividly huge to pleasingly small. This is her teeny Wild Swimmers screen print that is simply too adorable for words! This tiny print is a 3 layer screen print and each one hand pulled, therefore like most screen prints each print is slightly different and unique!
Banannas by Charlotte Farmer is an awesome screen print and wonderfully colourful! Each colour has been hand pulled by the artist making it a labour of love – by counting the colours we can get an idea about how much work it took to complete this remarkable print. Charlotte has a very distinctive style which brings together her love of low tech, DIY printing methods and intense detail. Farmer’s screen prints are packed full of personality due to the deliberate embracing of precision technique and gestural mark making and as a result her screen prints have a refreshingly, experimental style!
London based artist Tom Berry is a screen printer with definite style! This is Garden Man which is a limited edition print of 23 and a feat of super precise printing. This print contains gloriously, gradiating colours and beautiful shape, lines, details. Tom Berry’s screen prints are captivating due to their strip backed elegance alongside intricate motifs – giving his works a sense of magic and symbolism. Berry is a screen printer with a growing reputation for superb prints and concepts – so keep you eye on this screen print artist!
Sleeping Dragon limited edition screen print by Emily Hogarth. This print depicts the Edinburgh skyline with a hidden, sleeping dragon hiding around the castle in a restful slumber!
This image started off as a papercut and then was transferred onto a screen to create these lovely two layered screen prints! This edition is in black with a soft shimmery gold and in a limited edition run of 50. All prints are signed and numbered by Emily Hogarth, a Scottish designer and illustrator living and working in Edinburgh from her studio located in Leith!
This is Arthur’s Seat screen print by Susie Wright. A beautiful landscape print that elegantly and intricately incorporates Edinburgh city and its famous hill formed by an extinct volcano millions of years ago! Susie is featured in this week’s #Meet The Maker – so find out all about her love of screen printing and thought behind her artistic process! 🙂