Fine art Printing
From Online Printing
Fine art printmaking has a glorious history that extends back to the time of the 16th century and Albrecht Direr Here is a brief rubdown of the major types of traditional fine art prints (also called fine prints or works on paper). Relief Prints The artist sketches an image on a wood block or other surface and then cuts away pieces from the surface, leaving only the raised image. Ink is then applied to the surface with a roller and transferred onto paper with a press or by hand-burnishing or rubbing. The recessed, cutaway areas do not receive ink and appear white on the printed image. Relief prints are characterized by bold dark-light contrasts. The primary relief techniques are woodcut (the earliest and most enduring print technique), wood engraving (made from the end-grain surface of blocks and offering more precision and detail), and lino cut (printed from linoleum; well-suited for large areas of contrasting colours). Intaglio Prints Intaglio (pronounced in-ta-yo) comes from the Italian word intaglio, meaning to incise. An image is incised with a pointed tool or bitten with acid into a metal plate, usually copper or zinc. The plate is covered with ink and then cleaned so that only the incised grooves hold the ink. The plate and dampened paper are then run through a press to create the print. The intaglio family of printmaking techniques includes: engraving (an engraved line has a sharp and clean appearance), dry point (results in heavier, softer-looking lines than those in an engraving), mezzo tint (yields soft tonalities ranging from argy to black), etching (results in a characteristically raised surface), and aqua tint (an etching process yielding a textured and toned image). Right: Spanish painter/printmaker Maureen Lucia Booth works with her etching press in her studio in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Granada. Left: The Three Graces, dry point, additive (etching), by Maureen Booth (2002). Lithography Invented in 1798, lithography is a oceanographic process that was championed by artists such as H Henri de Toulouse-Laurence, Goya, Picas so, Degas, Braque, and Moro To make a lithograph, the artist uses a greasy medium such as crayon or Tuscan to create an image on a stone or metal plate. The surface is then dampened with water, which is repelled by the greasy areas, sticking only to the sections of the plate that have not been de by the artist. Printer’s ink is then applied to the plate with a roller. This, in turn, sticks only to the greasy sections, as the water protects the rest of the plate. The stone or plate is then covered with paper and run through a printing press to create the print. Screen prints (Serigraph) This technique was popularized by artists like Andy Warhol who exploited its bold, commercial look. To make a screen print, an image that has been cut out of a material (paper, fabric, or film) is attached to a piece of tautly stretched mesh. Paint is then forced through the mesh the screen onto the sheet of paper below by means of a squeegee. The uncovered areas of the screen all q the paint to pass through, while the areas covered by the image shapes do not. For works with more than one colour, a separate screen is required for each colour Screen prints, silkscreen, and serigraph are different words for the same process. Mono types/Mono prints As their names imply, mono types or mono prints (the words are often confused and sometimes used interchangeably) are prints that have an edition of a single impression. The artist creates an image on a smooth, flat surface, which is then covered with dampened paper and run through a printing press or rubbed with the back of a spoon or with another tool, or even the artist’s hand. Only one unique print results.
