The Physicality of Ink: We're Building, Not Spraying

This is the absolute core of it. A digital printer, no matter how high-end, works by spraying millions of microscopic dots of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink (CMYK) onto paper to create the illusion of an image. It’s clever, but it’s flat.

Screen printing is physical. For every single colour in one of my designs, a stencil is created on a fine mesh screen. I then place the screen on the paper and pull a thick, viscous layer of ink across it with a squeegee. The ink is forced through the open parts of the stencil, creating a solid, opaque block of colour on the paper below. We do this again, and again, for each colour. You're not looking at dots; you're looking at distinct, layered shapes of pure ink. If you run your finger over one of my prints, you can often feel the slight texture, the raised edge where one layer of ink sits on another. It has a presence and depth that a spray of dots just can't replicate.

Colour with Character: Mixed by Hand, Not by Number

Have you ever tried to print a really vibrant orange or a deep, rich blue on a desktop printer? It often comes out looking a bit sad and muddy. That's the limitation of CMYK mixing. A screen printer doesn’t have that problem. We mix our colours by hand, using pure pigments to create specific spot colours. It's like being a chef instead of using a microwave meal.

This means I can create colours that are insanely vibrant, perfectly opaque, or even fluorescent and metallic – things a digital process struggles with. Each batch of ink is unique. It's mixed by eye and experience to get it just right for the design and the paper it's going on. This hands-on approach to colour is a massive part of what gives an Oli Fowler Art print its punch and personality. It’s colour with soul.

Perfectly Imperfect: The Human Touch in Every Pull

The final, crucial difference is the human element. Pushing a button guarantees uniformity. Pulling a squeegee guarantees originality. Every single print in an edition is made by hand, one at a time. This means there will be tiny, almost imperceptible variations between them. The pressure of my pull might change ever so slightly, depositing a fraction more ink on one than another. The registration—the process of lining up each colour layer perfectly—might be off by a hair's breadth.

Some people might see these as flaws. I see them as the fingerprint of the process. It's the proof that a person, not a machine, made this for you. It’s a quiet reminder that you own something crafted with skill and care, where every decision, from the ink viscosity to the squeegee angle, was made by a human. It's not a bug; it's a feature.

So, when you buy a screen print, you’re not just buying an image. You’re buying a tactile object, a collection of hand-mixed colours, and a piece of a skilled, manual process. It’s a slice of the studio, ink and all, right there on your wall.

See the difference for yourself. Have a browse through the prints currently available in the store over at olifowler.com.