The printing method used is serigraphy (silk-screen printing), the printing technique used for the reproduction of images on any material, consisting of transferring a colour through a mesh tightened on a frame. The transfer of the colour through the mesh is blocked in the areas where there will be no image, using an emulsion or varnish that leaves the area through which the colour will pass (area of the open mesh) uncovered.
Like any other printing method, the silk-screen printing process can be repeated, enabling hundreds of copies to be made, which can then be numbered and signed by the artist.
The process starts with the creation of the sketches on zinc, the same material on which to print. In this way, using the same number of colours to be edited (in this case three) I am able to get very near to the intended result. The whole process, printing included, is open to the modification and reinterpretation of the sketch.
Once the plates are cut in the desired size, they undergo a process of sanding similar to the one used in the original work. In this way each one of the edited artworks will obtain its own creative expression and texture.
I then proceed with opaque colour on acetate sheets to separate and register each one of the three colours which make up the sketch. Later, these colours will be visible through a photochemical emulsion process in the free area of the screen (permeable printing area), through which the colour will be transferred
The first colour to be printed (left image) is opaque and dark, almost black; this is used to create the base of the image to which we will add the remaining two colours, which are transparent. This superposition of transparent colours allows us to increase the colour range, taking into account the limited number of colours available.
The image on the right shows the plate with the first print ready to receive the second colour, which can be seen on the screen. This patch – which looks white – is the unblocked area of the screen through which the colour will pass.
The printer (Pepe Bofarull) applies the second colour, pressing down on a rubber squeegee to drag the colour. The colour passes through the permeable areas of the dense mesh, leaving the image printed on the plate.
The plates are placed on a tray to dry, waiting for the last colour to be printed (image below).
Once the printing of the three colours has been finished, the three postcards are separated by cutting the plates. Each one of the plates then receives an individual treatment, with colour shading and polishing of the metal, thus creating different light and chromatic qualities in each of them.