What Is a Screen Print? The Craft Behind Sam Leitch's Limited Editions

Screen printing is a layered, hands-on printmaking process built on precision and craft. Also known as serigraphy, it is one of the most respected techniques in fine art printmaking — valued not for speed or convenience, but for the depth, texture, and tactile quality that only a hand-built process can produce. Every screen print is evidence of a decision made by a human hand, repeated dozens of times until the image is complete.

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How a Screen Print Is Made

The process begins long before the press is touched.

  1. The image originates either from an original painting or original image in ones mind
  2. It is separated, by hand, into its individual colours 
  3. Each colour is transferred onto its own silk screen
  4. Paper passes through the press one layer at a time, each colour aligned precisely against the last

This alignment — registration — is the most demanding part of the process. A misstep of even a fraction of a millimetre and the entire composition shifts. As The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, this layered registration of colour across multiple screens is what gives serigraphy its distinctive visual character and craft integrity.

The result is a surface with genuine texture: ink sits physically on the paper, built up layer by layer, so the finished print carries a tactile quality no digital process can imitate.

Why This Process Matters to Collectors

A screen print is not a copy of a decision. It is the decision, made real, dozens of times over. Colour separation, ink density, paper selection, the order in which layers are laid down — every one of these is a creative choice made by the artist, not automated by a machine.

This is precisely why limited edition screen prints hold genuine collectible standing. The edition size is finite by nature of the process itself — not by marketing convention. Each print is numbered, signed, and represents a process that cannot be fully replicated by mechanical means alone. Once an edition is printed and the screens are retired, that particular sequence of decisions cannot be made again.

View available screen print editions — see what's currently available

A Way Into Original Fine Art

For collectors building a contemporary art collection, screen prints offer something rare: a genuine entry point into an artist's original practice, without sacrificing the depth or craftsmanship that defines a one-of-a-kind work. You are not buying a reproduction at a remove from the artist's hand — you are buying the direct product of it.

Each edition is finite. Once it closes, it does not reopen.

Once your print arrives, our guide to framing will help you display and preserve it at its best.

 

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