Printmaking

Printmaking is any art form that involves transferring one image, from one surface to another. Most often this includes a “printing plate” or some kind of matrix being pressed onto paper. Various printmaking methods and techniques include:

Intaglio Prints

Intaglio prints are created when an image is incised into a surface, such as a printing plate. The image is cut into the plate by the use of various tools (engraving, drypoint, mezzotint, and crible) and acids (line, aquatint, soft ground, lift ground and embossing). Once the image is complete, the artist applies ink to the surface of the plate, making sure the ink has been pushed into the crevices. Then, the surface is wiped off, leaving the ink in the recesses of the plate. Using an etching press, the plate is then pressed onto printmaking paper in order to transfer the image.

Please click here for a portfolio of etchings by Douglas E. Taylor. We also have etchings from Elizabeth Paganelli.

Relief Prints

Relief prints use the opposite method of intaglio prints: the top surface of the plate is inked, while the groves are left ink free. Once the top surface of the plate makes contact with the paper, the image is transferred. Because this process is much easier than with intaglio prints, a printing press is not needed. Simply pressing a paper over the plate surface and rubbing it with, for example, the side of a pencil, will cause the image to be transferred from the plate to the paper.

Relief tequiniques include woodcut, wood engraving, linocut, etching, collagraph and metalcut.

Stencil or Serigraphy

Stencils, silk screns, and serigraphy (screen printing) are the only printmaking methods that do not involve working in a mirror image. In Serigraphy, a screen is stretched over a frame. The stencil design is then adhered to the screen beforea thin layer of ink is pushed through the screen using a squeegee. The stencil is used in order to block ink from being pushed through a fine fabric screen.

Collagraph Prints

Collagraph prints are created by adhering various textured materials onto a printing plate, often made of plexi-glass or masonite. Any material that will hold the ink for printing, such as cardboard, paper, plastic, and sandpaper. The surface is usually inked as an intaglio print, but can also be treated as a relief print as well.

Monotype

A monotype print is made by painting the surface of a non-absorbant material, such as an etching plate, and then pressing that plate onto a sheet of paper. This produces a one-of-a-kind print because most of the paint is transferred onto the paper during the initial press. Occasionally, a second printing can be done from the same plate, a “ghost print,” but these prints are usually inferior in quality.

Woodcut

Woodcut is a printmaking technique in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood. Because this is a form of relief print, the non-printing parts of the image are removed and show up as white on the print.

Linocut

Linocut is a variation of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum is used for the relief surface.

Engraving

Engravers use a steel tool called a burin to cut a design into the surface of the plate

Drypoint

Drypoint is a variation of engraving, but instead uses a sharp point that is similar to using a pencil.

Monoprints

Monoprinting is a form of printmaking which produces one of a kind prints. These prints can be created by using a variety of different methods, such as an etching plate, intaglio or by collagraphy. Monoprints can also be made by altering the type, color, and viscosity of the ink used to create each unique print.

By combining several different methods of printmaking, one can create a mixed-process monoprint. Douglas E. Taylor has created several mixed-process monoprints that we have available at Vista Gallery and Framing. He often combines various etching techniques, drypoint, monotype, collagraph, various relief printing techniques (woodcut, linocut and collagraph), stenciling and masking, and a special offset technique that is similar to counter-proofing.

Vista Gallery Artists Involved in Printmaking

Douglas E. Taylor
Elizabeth Paganelli
Ingrid Evans
Roy Dryer III