Screen-Printing with Surimacca
Last year during my visit to Taipei, Taiwan, I made a special trip to Retro Insatsu Jam (Insatsu means printing in Japanese), a print shop that specializes in Risograph printing as well as offers screen-printing workshops. I got the Surimacca screen set there, which is a brilliant design that allows different configurations to fit the size of your screen. When you’re not using the screen, the frame can be taken apart and stored in a small box. Another amazing thing about this is that you can just send in your file and the shop can make the screen for you within minutes. The down side is that they don’t have international shipping; I had to ask my family in Taiwan to mail it to me. It’s not exactly convenient if I have to do this every time. However, I’m sure the frame will work just fine with the screen you make your own. I just haven’t got to experiment with that.
I have 4 screens made in total for my Pineapple and Grape prints. The printing process was fairly easy, but I think to make the print even more perfect, it would require some practice. How you hold the squeegee, how much force you apply to it, and how much ink you put on the screen are all going to affect the print quality. I love the tiny imperfections on the prints though, they’re exactly the charms of printmaking!
Check out this BTS video:
More about Surimacca
Surimacca is a Japanese brand by a company called JAM. From my understanding, they have stores in Japan and Taiwan. Retro Insatsu Jam is the one in Taiwan that I visited. Unfortunately their official websites are available in Japanese and Chinese only. I can’t seem to find more documentation about it in English, other than a few award records like this one. It also seems that Surimacca is not available for purchase in other parts of the world, which is a shame! Well, if I get enough interests here, perhaps I can become a distributor in North America (j/k)!
