The Art of Screen Printing ~ by Andrew Tyler

 Screen printing, or serigraphy, is a technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade is moved across the screen to fill the mesh apertures with ink. Whilst maintaining downward pressure on the screen, a second stroke of the blade causes the mesh to touch the substrate momentarily along a line of contact. This causes the ink to wet the substrate and be pulled out of the mesh apertures as the screen springs back after the blade has passed. One color is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multi-coloured image. 

Based upon a scale drawing or sketch, each of my screen prints are printed in a bespoke manner - there is no limit to how many printings or colours I might add...when the print looks complete, then I stop. In a way they are more like printed paintings. 


‘Without the Aid of a Safety Net' is fairly typical of my approach. My method is termed 'reduction printing' as I start by printing a black square, this representing the whole of the image area to be printed and coloured. Next, I do a drawing using a brush dipped in a water based solution, so that, wherever I paint will block the screen mesh, leaving a black outline below it. 

After that it is a question of filling in the colours in to the unblocked mesh, jigsaw fashion, gradually 'reducing' the printable area. This particular screen print has, in the region of approximately twenty opaque colours, after which I cleaned off the screen and, once again using blue filler, painted and then printed a grading tinted sequence, usually varying from black to a deeper blue/black on top of the previous opaque colours making a richness and depth of colour unusual in most screen printing personal processes. 

Crazy but, true...all that effort and detail for a tiny edition of only nine. The images show the process and finished item, number 3 of 9, 13” x 17”

Andrew Tyler

Andrew Tyler is a Worcestershire-based artist and musician whose creative narrative exposes the duality of the human condition with humour and irreverence. 

A masters graduate of Chelsea School of Art, exhibitions include The Royal Academy of Arts (Stowell’s silver prize), Bradford British International Print Biennale, Angela Flowers Gallery, Wrexham Print International, Cheltenham Gallery (prize winner 2004) , The Kowalsky Gallery, Number 8, Worcester Arts Workshop & Worcester Museum and Art Gallery. He has appeared in Time Out, Average Art Magazine, The Face & Worcestershire Living .” Simultaneously serious, amusing, touching and daring to unravel”, his art is in the collections of notables such as Bill Wyman and Oscar Grillo.

He produces his work organically, without conscious preconceptions, opening the field to whatever ideas and themes emerge from his subconscious or his experience. He then combines these ideas with other, more calculated objects and concepts to further stress these seemingly ‘miraculuous apparitions’. His uncompromising graphic style explores love, sex, romance, vulnerability, female empowerment, nightmares, loneliness, the list goes on; the very ‘lived experience’ of being human, in its beauty and in its darkness, in its joy and in its tragedy.

Breaking conventions from the outset (his most memorable early piece being a depiction of his primary school being blown to smithereens) Andrew has been equally defiant in his experimentation with etching, printing, painting and hand-drawn work. Unsettling and alienating the gatekeepers of the art establishment ‘Cabal’ along the way, Andrew continues to produce prolifically. He awaits your engagement, your applause, hiss or boo.
To connect with Andrew, please click on the links below.

FACEBOOK

INSTAGRAM

**All photos are property of Andrew Tyler and may not be used without permission.