Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven

Woven

A woven is a cloth formed by weaving. It only stretches in the bias directions , unless the threads are elastic. Woven cloth usually frays at the edges, unless measures are taken to counter this, such as the use of pinking shears or hemming.Woven fabrics are worked on a loom and made of many...

 mesh

Mesh

Mesh consists of semi-permeable barrier made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible/ductile material. Mesh is similar to web or net in that it has many attached or woven strands.-Types of mesh:...

 to support an ink-blocking stencil

Stencil

A stencil is a thin sheet of material, such as paper, plastic, or metal, with letters or a design cut from it, used to produce the letters or design on an underlying surface by applying pigment through the cut-out holes in the material. The key advantage of a stencil is that it can be reused to...

. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee

Squeegee

A squeegee, squilgee or sometimes squimjim, is an onomatopoeically named tool with a flat, smooth rubber blade, used to remove or control the flow of liquid on a flat surface...

 is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas.

Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface.