Spot Colours vs. The Pixel Soup

Most digital prints you see (often called Giclées if they’re feeling fancy) use CMYK—Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. These four colours are sprayed in tiny dots to trick your eyes into seeing other colours. Screen printing doesn't play those games. We use 'spot colours.' If I want a vibrant, neon orange that makes your teeth ache, I don’t mix dots; I physically mix a pot of thick, vibrant orange ink and push it through a mesh. Because the ink sits on top of the paper rather than soaking into it like a digital dye, the colours have a depth and a "pop" that digital machines simply cannot replicate. It’s the difference between a flat photo of a steak and the actual steak sizzling in front of you.

The Physics of the Mesh and the Squeegee

Every single colour you see in one of my prints requires its own individual screen. That means if a print has eight colours, I’ve had to coat, expose, wash, and dry eight different screens. Each one is a fine polyester mesh stretched tight over a frame. When I’m in the studio, I’m manually pulling a rubber squeegee across that mesh with just the right amount of pressure and speed. Too much pressure and the ink bleeds; too little and it looks patchy. It’s a physical, tactile process that requires a fair bit of muscle memory and a lot of patience. You aren't just buying a reproduction; you're buying the result of a physical performance.

Registration: The Art of Lining It All Up

One of the most technical (and occasionally frustrating) parts of the craft is registration. This is the science of making sure that the blue layer lands exactly where it’s supposed to in relation to the red layer. We’re talking about fractions of a millimetre. Unlike a digital printer that handles this via software, I’m doing this by hand using tiny plastic tabs and a very keen eye. If the paper shifts a hair’s breadth, the whole print is ruined. This "imperfection" of the human hand is actually what gives screen prints their soul. Every print in an edition is technically unique because the ink might lay slightly differently or the pressure might vary by a fraction. That’s what makes it an 'original' print rather than a photocopy.

When you hold a screen print, you can feel the texture of the ink. You can see the slight overlap where two colours meet. You’re holding something that was laboured over, layer by layer, in a messy London studio. It’s a slow, deliberate way of making art in a world that’s increasingly obsessed with "instant."

Ready to see the results of all that squeegee-pulling for yourself? Browse the latest limited editions at olifowler.com and find something that actually has a bit of weight to it.