Print-making methods

Press, 31 March 1981, Page 17

Print-making methods

Artists make their original prints in many different ways. The oldest method is to cut out the design for the picture on the surface of a block of wood. The block is inked and when the paper is pressed against it, the ink is transferred to it from the raised surfaces. Linocuts are made in the same way, using linoleum as the block. The opposite of relief printing, as this is called, is the intaglio method. Here, lines are incised on the printing block or plate, ink is rolled over the block, and then the surface is wiped clean. Ink lying in the incised lines is picked up by the paper when it is pressed on to the plate. Intaglio embraces drypoint, engraving, and mezzotint (all done with a variety of tools for marking the plate), and etching and aquatint (both of which use acid to “eat” the required marks inte the surface). - Serigraphy, or silk-screen printing, is a variation on the stencil process. Ink is squeezed on to the paper through a fabric screen on which the non-printing parts are masked by a stencil which is either stuck on or painted on. Lithography (literally “stone writing”) is flat-surface printing, which depends on the antipathy of grease and water. When ink is rolled on to the printing stone or meta! plate it adheres only to the image areas previously drawn on it by the artist. The rest of the surface, dampened by water, repels it. Photolithography, the process used to print art reproductions, uses the same principle as lithography, but

the ink-receptive image on the printing surface comes from a photographic negative of the original work. The printing surface is given a light-sensitive coating so that it can receive the image when light is shone through the negative. In photolithography, printing is done on a mechanical press, but when artist printmakers print from the blocks they have prepared they do it by hand. For woodblock or linocut prints they can simply burnish the paper by hand with a wooden spoon or something similar, so that the ink is pressed on to the paper. Or the block can be used in a hand press such as that made available to print-makers at the Gingko print gallery at the Christchurch Arts Centre. Ms J. Einhorn, supervisor of the Gingko Gallery, notes that some famous printmakers overseas produce their prints in collaboration with a professional printer, but always from a block prepared by the artist himself. Original prints are traditionally, identified at the bottom by the edition number on the left side (for example, “4/30,” meaning the fourth print in an edition of 30), the title in the centre, and the artist’s signature and the date at the right. Where the artist himself has done the printing the. expression “imp” is added after the edition number. If a printer has collaborated with the artist in printing from his block or plate, the printer’s embossed mark or signature will appear on the back of the print.