Beyond image creation, the first step to any silkscreen project is to prepare the screens. In this case we produced films based on Isabel's photographic imagery and then we used those films to expose screens that were coated with UV sensitive emulsion and then exposed to high-powered UV light.

Once the exposure has taken place, the screen with the exposed emulsion is immediately rinsed with water. The image is revealed as areas on the screen mesh. This corresponds to the film image where dark areas rinse out and light areas remain baked on the mesh.

Prior to printing, we go through each screen to ensure that there are are no pin-holes or open areas beyond the intended image. In this image, Isabel is carefully going through the screen and touching-up micro spots in the screen mesh with emulsion applied by a brush.

Here at Smokestack we primarily acrylic-based inks in our screen printing projects. In the case of Isabel's project, we used primarily black ink to produce the screen printed elements for each image.

A squeegee of hard rubber is used to pull ink through the mesh of the screen. Where openings exist in the mesh as image area, ink can move through and be transposed onto the surface of the paper or material below.

The result: a beautiful translation of Isabel's vision in all it's inky glory! In this case we chose to run the entire project on a material called Yupo - a very smooth polyester-based material - that produced some beautiful results through the entire duration of the project. It offered a very nice surface to print on that delivered a tremendous amount of detail. It is also has a slightly translucent appearance which offered an interesting finish to the final work and bode well for our next steps in the project.

The second step to Isabel's project involved a digital image layer. She worked with Jonathan in our digital studio to produce layers printed on transparent film that corresponded to each screen piece. In this step we needed to ensure that both the size and transparency of this top layer were in clear and direct conversation with the underlying silkscreened ink layer. This took some careful balancing and play to ensure the feeling and visibility were just right!

The third and final step to producing this part of Isabel's residency project was to take both the screen printed and digitally printed elements and bond them seamlessly through a mounting process. This was brought together with precision by Lisa in our mounting and finishing studio. Adhesive was carefully applied using a roll-press to the backside of the silkscreen layers. Each silksreen layer was then bonded down to an aluminum composite support for long-term stability and rigidity.

Next, we took the digital film layer of print (which is also coated on the back with adhesive) and it affixed seamlessly to the mounted screen print/ aluminum composite construction. Easy,... Right!? Well, not quite. This process required some very delicate handling and careful application as to not attract any dust particles. For those of us who have worked with materials such as films and synthetics will know that these are static and dust attracting. Even the smallest rogue particle will produce a visible bubble or inclusion in the final artwork. This is surgical work!

The final chapter to Isabel's time here at Smokestack was to continue work in the analog studio with Laine to produce a CMYK process screen print. Using 4-colours (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), the image is carefully constructed layer by layer to produce a full-colour interpretation of Isabel's photograph. This is done by initially breaking the image down into it's colour components and making halftone dot matrices for each colour. Screens are produced for each layer and the colours get recompiled one by one in print.

In this image you can see the interaction of both the cyan & magenta layers as the image starts to build. Similar to the larger body of work Isabel created, we chose to print this edition on Yupo.