If you’re interested in learning how to do vertical screen printing, contact us at Super G Print Lab in Durham, NC. We offer personal screen printing lessons and group workshops. Contact info at screenprintworkshop.com
UNC faculty artist Jina Valentine learning some vertical screen printing techniques at Super G Print Lab.
VSP friend Stefan Hoffmann recently spent time in Japan working on another excellent project (see it here). While there he met an artist, Taku, that does vertical screen printing. Here’s what Stefan had to say: “I met a vertical screen printer with a really nice technique when I was in Tokyo. No ink, just dirt he found on the street, added some wheat paste, and pushed his mixture through a very coarse mesh. I was amazed about the amount of detail and the thickness of the ‘ink layer’.” See documentation of Taku’s technique below. Photos by Stefan Hoffmann
Australian artist Cam Scott sent us some info and pictures about a project he recently completed.
What Cam said about the work:
“These boxes were a part of Waverley Council’s ‘Utility Box Art
Beautification Project’ which sort out local artists to transform ugly
traffic boxes around this area of Sydney. As for the boxes in the
video, I chose to cover them with stencils made from the surrounding
North Bondi landscape. The boat ramp, Ben Buckler Point, Bondi beach
and its sand. I really enjoy playing with perspective in my work but
this was my first attempt at combining separate public spaces through
silk screen.”
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Here’s information about a screen printed mural in Belfast, Northern Ireland sent to us by Leo Boyd.
This mural was designed for the entranceway of a youth centre on an interface in Belfast. The original design was conceived as being a series of interlocking circuit board trees where the nodes of the circuit would contain images created in a group of workshops.
The brief for the mural was to create something that represented the ethos of the youth centre. IE: inclusion for everyone, no matter your religion, ethnicity, ability or sexual orientation.
With this mural Laura and I wanted to try something different and considering my back ground as a print maker we decided to have a go at vertical screen printing.
The next step in the mural is the ‘Welcome Wall.’ The kids in the workshop have designed a series of welcomes in various different languages. We will screen print their designs onto the wall and have the kids paint in the colours.
Bill Fick has been leading a big project at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. Its a 2500 square foot installation that includes lots of vertical screen printing. See this link for more details: http://visarts.org/exhibitions/upcoming/reflections-exhibition/
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View of gallery. Walls have been covered and ready for vertical screen printing.
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Travis Robertson showing some ninja screen printing techniques.
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At the opening
POSADA 100 YEARS ON Mural by Carlos Hernandez and The Amazing Hancock Brothers
Based on and inspired by the art of Jose Guadalupe Posada, printmakers Carlos Hernandez of Burning Bones Press in Houston, TX and The Amazing Hancock Brothers (Charles & John) of Austin, TX have created a tribute to Posada in recognition of the 100 years since his death. Posada was known primarily for woodcuts and engravings. The printmakers chose to take a more contemporary approach – the “Screenprint Mash-Up” – using his imagery. The process is collaborative, frenetic, fast and democratic; a set number of images were chosen, put into screens and were printed onto canvas in a seemingly random manner. The process allows spontaneity in re-contextualizing Posada’s images. The mural was created during a five-day period from June 3rd thru June 7th, 2013 at Burning Bones Press in Houston, Tx.
The piece is installed at The Pastry War in Houston.
Wall covering on site.
Carlos Hernandez and John Hancock hard at work.
John and helper adding final details.
VSP champion Stefan Hoffmann recently finished a project in Montreal. Here’s a video of the piece being created.
Here’s a time-lapse video of Chad Silver and his associates working on wall graphics at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Lots of very skillful vertical screen printing going here! You can learn more about this project and other outstanding work by Chad at his web site: From the desk of Chad Silver
Untitled by Bill Fick
Detail
When most people think of screen printing they usually visualize Warhol’s “Marilyn” or an indie rock gig poster or a pastel colored beachscape print, but not many folks know that screen prints can also be found printed directly on walls. This summer I had the opportunity to make a mural on a wall in Perkins library (in a hallway leading to the Gothic Reading Room) using a vertical screen printing technique that I’ve been researching. The project is the culmination of a Collaboration Development Grant from the Duke Council for the Arts. The grant also involved bringing Dutch artist Stefan Hoffmann to Duke to share his highly developed vertical screen printing methods with me, students, staff and Art, Art History and Visual Studies professor Merrill Shatzman.
Beyond applying newly developed vertical screen printing techniques, the mural also gave me the opportunity to take advantage, and bring attention, to the Edwin and Terry Murray Comic Book Collection found in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. In the past four years I’ve been using the Murray Collection as a teaching tool and resource for my Art of the Comic Book and Zines class. The mural design used appropriated images taken from an assortment of comics found in the collection. These included Marge’s Little Lulu and Tubby, Classics Illustrated – The Black Tulip, The Mark of Zorro and Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. I also used images taken from books found in the Lilly Library comics and graphic novels section (A Steve Ditko monograph and Love and Rockets, New Stories No. 1 by the Hernandez brothers). The images ranged from faces/heads to a standing figure to a tulip flower. I really wasn’t thinking about content but more about interesting shapes and forms – although I did use some text that related to the location of the piece.
The concept for the mural was to make a colorful and active design that used pop culture and street art/graffiti strategies (practiced by contemporary artists like Shepard Fairey, Faile, Bäst and pioneered by artists like Polke, Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, Warhol). This included layering, repetition and patterning which can be easily implemented using the vertical screen printing method – one image per screen applied to the wall over and over again. This method also yields unexpected relationships between content and shapes that I find very exciting. The viewer can make their own narrative or allow it to be purely decorative. For this reason, the mural is untitled.
The project was made possible by a Collaboration Development Grant from the Council for the Arts, Office of the Provost, Duke University. Thanks again to Meg Brown.
Bill Fick, August 2011
Vertical Screen Printing 