When an artist is selling a screen print and it says it’s a ‘9 color screen print’ what does that mean exactly?
For example this: http://tragicsunshine.com/art_prints/mulholland-drive
24″ x 36″ 9 color Screen Print w/ Metallic Inks on 100 lb Cream Cover
Paper. Edition of 300, signed and numbered.
Does that mean the artist literally only used 9 different colors to create that piece and then they’re each layered on in the screen printing process? That seems pretty crazy that an artist would have to only choose from a handful of colors. I guess in the example I linked I can see just a few colors being used but the different shades, etc. make it seem like more.
Answer
Does that mean the artist literally only used 9 different colors to
create that piece and then they’re each layered on in the screen
printing process?
That’s exactly what it means! Screen printing is when the artist takes each pigment, and drags it across the image-imprinted screen, one at a time, layering the inks in a specific order to get their desired effect. 9 inks would actually make for a pretty high-quality screen print (as the sample image you posted certainly looks to be).
Here’s an infographic from shopworks.com that shows the process for a 1-color screen print. Multiply that by 9 for a 9-color screen print. It’s actually quite a bit of work!
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : user1076802 , Answer Author : Vicki