Why I chose stencil printing on fabric over screen printing

The pros and cons of both print techniques.

When I first started printing on fabric more than 10 years ago, I did a screen-printing course in a studio near my home. The studio closed not long after taking that first course and if it hadn’t, I would be still be happily screen printing, but circumstances led me to stencil printing instead. At first, it was just to tie me over, but I never really went back and in this post I’d like to talk about why I chose stencil printing over screen printing and the pros and cons of both that I have experienced in my practice.

Participants in my courses sometimes ask me about the differences and similarities between both techniques and how they can be used, so I’ll try to give some ideas here, so that you can decide on the best technique for you.

I will never forget the moment in that first screen printing course when I lifted my screen to reveal the very first print with my own design on the fabric. It truly felt magic. I had the chance to do a few more print sessions before the studio unexpectedly closed. It was meant to be for a few months only, but in fact it only reopened a year later. I was still at a stage where I needed some help and instruction and could not see myself doing this alone. I had done some stencil printing in my teens and because I couldn’t forget the feeling of fresh ink on fabric that I had experienced with the screen printing, I decided to try this instead, until I could go back to the studio. But although I did find some new instruction and a way to screen print at home, I had already fallen so deeply in love with stencil printing that I never really looked back, although I did practice both side by side for a little while.

There are similarities between both techniques: ink is applied with a brush through a stencil for stencil printing and with a ‘squeegee” through a screen with open areas for screen printing. I use the same ink for both. 

I learned to screen print using a screen with a design ‘burnt’ into the screen (I’ll mention another technique below). If you are not familiar with this process these are the essentials: to ‘burn’ an image into a screen you coat a mesh screen with light sensitive photo emulsion, you then place a film with a design printed in black over it and expose it to ultraviolet (UV) light. The emulsion that was exposed will harden and in the areas that were covered by the dark coloured design the unhardened emulsion will be washed out.  These are the areas that you ink will pass through when you apply it with a squeegee.

This is a process that studios are equipped for. They have an exposure box or table to do this. It can be done at home, but you need quite a set up and a lot of expertise. When I did screen printing from home for a while I had my screens burnt for me in a studio elsewhere.

There are very specific pros and cons to both techniques and if you are considering one of them for the first time, the nature of your artwork and the way you want to use your prints can help determine your choice.

A design for screen printing can be incredibly detailed and this technique allows you to work with many kinds of artwork whereas for a stencil design I mostly simplify my artwork somewhat to make stencils.

A screen normally only prints in one colour. You can apply different inks to the screen to get a gradient of colours in one pull of the squeegee, but is it not suited for applying different colours to specific parts of your design. If you would like your design to have more colours you need more screens. In stencil printing it is much easier and cheaper to work with more different colours. You can use different stencils for different colours and you can even use different colours within the same stencil.

In stencil printing I use several cut out stencils to print a design. Most of my printed patterns are made with about 8 – 10 stencils. As soon as I have made a design that I would like to print I can ‘translate’ this design into stencils and cut them myself and try them on fabric. It is a very immediate technique, something that can be done at the kitchen table in a few hours.

This is one of the big advantages for me and another advantage is the relative ease of editing a design. When I find my printed fabric not quite what I had envisaged it is easy to change parts of it, recutting one or more stencils, adding something or taking something out, or changing the scale of one of the elements. It does happen that I need to start over, but often some adjustments will be enough.  When working with a burnt screen I would have to start over if I would want to rework part of a design.

A restriction in stencil printing is the fact that it is much harder to print a background to a design or any other surface with a large volume. In screen printing this it easy to do. If you want you can print a completely coloured background and foreground.

In screen printing it is also easier to register your prints with great precision, while in stencil printing you are more likely to see some small irregularities, depending on the complexity of a design and the experience of the printer. Like in block printing you will see some evidence of the ‘hand of the maker’ (which I usually quite like).

When I am happy with a design in stencil printing I can print many variations. I can work with different brush techniques to create different kinds of print, with more or less transparency or texture. I can print a design in one colour, or with several different colours. If printing a pattern I can change the rhythm of the repeat without changing all of the stencils. I love the freedom of playing with the possibilities of working with stencils, they are endless

There are however also restrictions to stencil printing, it is a very labor intensive technique, I use the stencils one after the other to form the whole motif and pattern and often add extra layers with the same stencils to create extra depth and interest overprinting with another colour and with another brush technique. This means that printing a floor to ceiling curtain is not the obvious choice for me (although some participants to my courses have done this). I prefer to work on a smaller scale with more layered designs. If I would have a business with a larger production volume, producing the same product many more times than I currently do, this would not be the right technique to work with, screen printing would be much more suitable.

There is another factor that was important for me when I chose stencil printing as my preferred technique and that is the environmental impact. In stencil printing I use very little ink, I use it by the teaspoon full. For screen printing much more ink is needed. It is a really big difference.

Cleaning materials is also very different from stencil printing to screen printing. In stencil printing I can clean my stencils and brushes under the kitchen tap using not much water at all. For screen printing screens are hosed down using quite a lot of water.

When you want to use a screen for a new design you ‘reclaim’ a screen by stripping it of the burnt in design you need to use chemicals to remove the hardened photographic emulsion. If I want to make a new design in stencil printing I need new stencils and will need to cut the necessary pieces of mylar for them.

These are some personal experiences and some pros and cons that I have come across in working with both techniques. If the choice between these two techniques has been on your mind, this may help.

In this blog post I have talked about screen printing with burnt screens because this is the technique that I have experience in. Some people work with screens and stencils combined which can be very interesting, but maybe something to talk about another time.