Workshop Reflection: Ceramic Screen Printing with Micaela Schoop
Today I was fortunate to receive a tutorial in the fascinating process of screen printing onto ceramics from the incredibly talented ceramic artist Micaela Schoop. Micaela creates beautiful, intricate work through hand painting and also occasionally incorporates screen printing into her practice, making her the perfect person to introduce us to this technique.
She generously provided a selection of her own handmade screens for us to experiment with. Each screen had been created from her original drawings, which produced wonderfully detailed and expressive prints. Seeing the possibilities has inspired me to explore making my own screens from photographs, particularly of the Salt Marsh, as I think the textures and natural forms would translate beautifully into this process.
To prepare the printing medium, glaze was mixed with AC-310 Mayco Silkscreen Medium using a palette knife on a clean tile. The glaze mixture was then gently pushed through the screens with our fingers onto leather-hard clay, although the same technique can also be used successfully on bisque-fired ware.
The results were extremely pleasing. The prints produced crisp, well-defined images that have enormous potential, either as standalone decoration or layered with other printing and surface techniques to create more complex compositions. The clarity of the printed patterns exceeded my expectations and has opened up exciting new possibilities for developing imagery within my ceramic practice.
The bisque-fired test prints have been a great success. My next step will be to apply transparent glaze to selected areas to see how the printed imagery responds after the glaze firing and to explore the range of visual effects that can be achieved. I am excited to continue experimenting with this technique and to see how it can become part of my own creative process.
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