ImagesMagUK_Digital-Edition_Nov17

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F or a number of months now the team at Images has been avidly following one particular Instagram account: madspecials, aka Milosj De Groot. The 43-year-old Dutch screen printer posts pictures of prints he’s created that look like miniature landscapes and high definition work that defies logic. It’s little wonder that earlier this year ink manufacturer Wilflex dubbed Milosj “The Jedi of the screen printing world”. Milosj’s father was a screen printer, as was his maternal grandfather. “My father knew everything about printing and, just like me, he was very much into art, pottery, painting...” He introduced Milosj to the art of screen printing on a flatbed when Milosj was six years old: he loved it from the start.

guy on the manual machine how long it would take. He said a week and a half. I said two days. ‘No f**king way,’ he said.” In the end, it took Milosj two and a half days. He’s been printing on a manual ever since. In his current workplace, where he’s been for nine years and is production manager, he does a variety of work – he’d been doing high-density prints with gel, 150 an hour, on the day he spoke to Images – but it’s when he gets home to his four-colour Printex press that he really stretches his creativity. His love of high definition prints began in 1995. He was at a trade show when he stopped by the M&R stand. “I remember the print well, it was a red and silver gel print with flames and they used brushes in the squeegee holder. I was amazed. I was like ‘This is my calling’. I’m like a dog, I grab something and never let go. I bought some capillary film and within one month I had results and they were amazing. The first wash tests were complete crap though – the print was left in the washing machine! If something doesn’t work, I want to know why. I try everything – put it through the dryer twice, five times – until I get it. “Then I got into speciality inks. There was this guy called Steve Miller at

At the age of 13, Milosj went to a school that specialised in graphical techniques – from technical drawings to using an old school Heidelberg press – but didn’t learn as much as he had hoped. At the age of 16 he had to find a job. “I didn’t know what to do, if I wanted to screen print. I loved it, but I didn’t like the fumes – my dad was always printing stickers and things like that, so he worked with volatile inks. I went through the Yellow Pages and saw a textile printing company. I applied for a job there, got hired and worked for them for a couple of years. At first I was a catcher, then within two months I was running a machine. “It was an American 10-colour machine and great fun – I used to open the control unit and mess around with the compressor. I could get 1,300 T-shirts an hour out of it, but the mechanic didn’t like it that much as he had to come in each month to fix it!” A passion for manuals After ten years working at a print shop, mainly on a manual, he ended up at Fox Productions Clothing where he began as an auto machine operator, although his passion was – and still is – manual printing. “One day I took my chance. There was an order for 1,200 coach jackets with two-colour chest and two- colour back prints. My boss asked the

Milosj’s love of high-definition prints began in 1995 when he saw a special M&R print at a trade show

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