: Number of colors in screen print 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

@Eichhorn212

One easy way to wrap your head around this is to think in terms of INKS not in terms of COLOURS. Having worked a lot in print, this has become second nature, but if you spend a lot of time working digitally then it won't be quite as simple.

The example you've given uses 9 different inks to create the design. That means that some areas will be screened over or under others with differing dot patterns to achieve certain shades. This is particularly obvious in the red inside of the banner shapes: the red is laid down with the navy blue laid over it as a shading tool.

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@Murray976

Yes 9 colors are used. Shades or tints of a color don't count as a separate color and additional colors can be created by overlapping two or more colors.

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@Megan533

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!

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