The physics of the mesh and the 'snap'

At its core, screen printing is about tension. We’re not talking about the stress of a deadline, but the literal tightness of a polyester mesh stretched over a frame. Each color in an Oli Fowler Art piece requires its own individual screen. I coat these in a light-sensitive emulsion, burn the image into them with a massive UV lamp, and then wash out the bits where I want the ink to pass through. When I’m at the vacuum table, there’s a technical element called 'off-contact.' The screen doesn’t actually touch the paper until the squeegee forces it down. That ‘snap’—the moment the mesh peels away from the paper as the squeegee passes—is what keeps the lines crisp. If the tension is off by a fraction, the whole thing becomes a blurry mess. It’s a balancing act of pressure, angle, and speed that no machine can truly replicate with the same character.

Ink density you can actually feel

This is the big one. Digital printing works by spraying tiny droplets of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) onto a surface. It’s thin, flat, and stays within the fibers of the paper. Screen printing, however, is an additive process. I’m literally pushing a thick layer of pigment-heavy ink through the mesh and depositing it *on top* of the paper. If you run your fingers over a high-quality screen print, you can feel the ridges. You can feel the weight of the ink. Because I mix my own colors using specific pigments rather than relying on a printer’s limited palette, the vibrancy is on another level. We’re talking about archival-quality inks that are designed to look just as punchy twenty years from now as they do the day they leave the drying rack.

The marathon of the multi-layer build

The biggest technical hurdle—and the reason screen prints hold their value—is the registration. If I’m working on a piece with twelve colors, I have to line up twelve different screens with sub-millimeter precision. One tiny slip on color number eleven, and the previous ten layers of work are essentially scrap paper. It’s a slow, methodical build. You lay down a base, wait for it to dry, set the next screen, test the alignment, and pull the squeegee again. It’s a test of patience and technical discipline. When you buy a screen print, you aren’t just buying an image; you’re buying a record of a physical performance that happened in the studio.

There’s a real satisfaction in the "clunk" of the press and the smell of the emulsion that a digital file just can't touch. It’s a craft that demands respect for the materials, and hopefully, when you see the finished result on your wall, that effort is loud and clear.

Ready to see the results of all that heavy lifting? Browse the full collection at olifowler.com and find something that’s been built to last.