|
|
Back
to
Bill
Wheeler Page |
|
| An original print is a work of
art
created by hand and printed by hand, either by the artist
or by a
professional
assistant (often called an artisan), from a plate, block,
stone, or
stencil
that has been hand created by the artist for the sole
purpose of
producing
the desired image. The plates or stencils it is printed
from bear no
resemblance
to the finished work of art, which means it is not a copy
or a
reproduction
of anything. In fact, in all print media but two, the
image on the matrix
(what the print is produced from) is mirror image or
backwards from
what
the finished work will be. The image reverses in the
printing process
so
the artist has to think and draw backwards. Each print
produced is
technically
a unique work although produced as a signed and
numbered multiple.
The
technical
term
for this is monoprint. The original
print
is usually produced as a limited number of impressions,
another
word for print. The term for this group of prints is the edition.
Although
there
are
many of the same image in an edition, each print is
an individual part of the whole, the whole being the
edition. An
original
print is actually one piece of a multiple original work of
art.
Original prints are traditionally signed in pencil by the artist. They are numbered to indicate how many prints there are in the edition and to identify the individual print. This number appears written as a fraction, for example: 34 / 75. This is called the edition number. The number to the right of the slash (in this example, 75) indicates the size of the edition: 75 prints have been produced. The number to the left is the actual number of the print. This number is read: "print number thirty four of seventy five". There are other types of identifying marks as well. The artist traditionally keeps a separate group of prints aside from the edition marked as artist's proofs, normally about ten or less. These are marked A / P, sometimes with an edition number after (such as: A / P 2 / 5) to indicate how many A / P's there are. During the course of developing the image an artist may pull many experimental images before modifying the plates to achieve the finished product. These are referred to as state proofs, trial proofs, or color proofs. When the image is finally perfected the printer's proof or bon-a'-tirer (signed B.A.T.) is pulled. This is the image that the rest of the edition is matched to and there is only one of these. The artisan printer traditionally gets to keep the printer's proof. What Is A Limited Edition Print? Many print collectors are confused by the terms "original print" and "limited edition print". The two are not synonymous. The term "original print" is a specific term; "limited edition" is a general term. An original print is almost always a limited edition print simply because the edition is limited to the actual number of prints that can be safely "pulled" or printed from the plates before the plates begin to wear out and break down from the physical wear and tear of the printing process. But a limited edition print may or may not be an original work of art. It might be just a photo-mechanical reproduction of a painting, photograph, drawing, etc., in other words no more than a poster. The edition may be limited to an arbitrary number of 500, 1000, often more, and is sometimes even signed in pencil by the artist. It is not, however, actually printed by the artist. The term "limited edition" is vague. When purchasing a work of art it's a good idea to know whether or not you're buying the real thing, if you truly want the "real thing". There is a reason for reproductions and posters in the print collectors' market; a reproduction sells for hundreds or even thousands of dollars less than an original work by the same artist. What's the Difference Between Them? There are new technologies in printmaking that are blurring the differences between Original Prints and reproductions, the Mylar Transfer process in lithography for one, and Giclee's for another. Technically speaking, Mylar prints are drawn by hand by the artist, which in one sense classifies them as original prints, but then they are photographically copied onto the plate or screen and at that point can potentially be mass produced on mechanical presses. Some artists are producing hand drawn offset lithographs in small, limited editions and other artists are experimenting with hand manipulated and modified color copies as original prints. Giclee's are digital ink jet prints of a digital image file on a computer or CD. Technically, they are copies, though some artists use this process to produce beautiful one-of-a-kind images on paper. In this ongoing debate one school of thought contends that an Original Print must be entirely produced by hand by the artist, which combines a considerable degree of skill, artistic ability, and technical knowledge. Another group states that the choice of whatever type of press, process, or medium is used is just an artistic tool. Some purists don't always agree that the above techniques are acceptable for producing original prints since there is far less physical work and, sometimes, no technical knowledge involved in producing an edition. The image my be hand drawn, but it may not be hand printed. There are just as many printmaker purists out there as there are experimenters and the element of the artist's direct control and manipulation of the medium is probably the key as to whether a print is an Original Print or not. So the debate goes on. The Difference Between Monoprints and Monotypes: These two terms are
often
confused
with each other. A monoprint is the term
for any
individual
original print that is part of a limited edition as
opposed to a reproduction
which is a copy of something else, such as a poster
print of a
painting.
A monoprint can also be any of a number of prints pulled
from a single
plate, but with no attempt to print any two the same
way. A monotype
however is a unique work of art usually printed from a
smooth flat
surface
such as a sheet of plastic. The artist paints by hand
the image to be
printed
directly on this smooth surface and then places a sheet
of paper over
the
freshly painted surface, cranks it through a press, and
so creates a
one-of-a-kind
work of art. Monotypes, by their nature, cannot be
produced as an
edition.
If they are numbered at all they are numbered as 1/1
(read as "one of
one"...
an edition of one, in other words).
Please
follow
these
links for additional information and resources:
This, the oldest and
most
basic
method
of making a print, evolved in China sometime around
800 A.D. It is
based
on the principle of cutting away part of the surface
of a block of
material
so that the image area to be printed stands out in
relief to form a
printing
surface. The ink can be rolled on to the surface to be
printed (called
a block in this form of printing) with
a rubber or
gelatin
roller (also called a brayer) or can be
applied to the
block
with a short bristled brush. Paper is placed over the
freshly inked
surface
and pressure is applied to transfer the ink from the
block to the
paper.
The pressure may come from cranking the block through
a printing press
or the pressure may be applied by hand by rubbing the
back of the paper
with a wooden or bamboo tool called a baren.
Some
artists
prefer to substitute the back of a wooden spoon for
the baren. This technique
involves the
use
of
a plank of wood or plywood on which the artist draws a
design and then
carves away the wood in the parts of the picture that
are not to be
printed.
The raised surface retains some of the pattern of the
wood grain which
shows up in the finished prints. Only one or two
colors can be applied
to the plate at one time. For prints with many colors
a separate block
must be carved for each color, and must line up
exactly with all the
other
blocks or the print will be out of register
like a badly
printed color newspaper photograph. In this type of
printing a
piece
of boxwood is cut perpendicular to the grain of the
wood. Since the
resulting end
grain offers a smoother and more uniform
surface than in
regular
woodcuts, little or none of the wood texture is seen
in the print. Wood
engravings are almost always small, usually under 5 x
6 inches because
boxwood does not grow very large. Larger blocks can be
made by
laminating
small pieces of wood together. This technique is
seldom used today. In
the past it was used mostly for book illustrations in
hand printed
volumes
mainly because the block can last for hundreds or even
thousands of
copies,
and this process produces an image of very fine
detail. There was a
large
revival of this technique in the 1930's among many
American WPA artists. Linoleum cuts, or
lino
cuts, are
almost identical to woodcuts. The only principle
differences are the
material
and the ease of cutting the plates. The artist works
on battleship
linoleum,
which is not the kind that is used in kitchens today.
It is a very
thick
and pliable material that cuts with a knife or other
cutting tool quite
easily. Inking and printing are exactly the same as in
woodcuts.
Sometimes
artists use linoleum for their color plates behind a
final run of a
woodcut
because this medium is so easy and quick to work in.
This is the most
basic of
all
print
processes. It consists of simply applying ink or paint
to something and
transferring the ink to the surface to be printed.
This process
includes
such simple things as rubber stamp prints, potato
block prints, finger
prints and hand prints. All of these humble techniques
have been used
at
one time or another by many well known artists.
Intaglio Process: The process of
intaglio,
incised
or copperplate printing uses a principle opposite to
that of relief
printing.
The image to be printed is sunk into the printing
surface (which in
this
process is called a plate) and filled
with a greasy
printer's
ink. Then the surface is carefully wiped clean so that
the ink remains
only in the incised design. The great pressure
required to pick up the
ink in the intaglio printing leaves a visible plate
mark within the
margin
of the uncompressed paper. This is the oldest
of the
intaglio
processes. Albrecht Durer was the first artist to
popularize this
medium
although there are some examples of prints made from
the engraved
designs
on suits of armor from almost one hundred years
earlier. In this
process
the design is cut into a metal plate, usually copper
or zinc, with a
sharp
tool called a burin. The plate is wiped
clean with a
type
of starched cheesecloth called tarlatan. The
ink
remains
only in the furrows left by the burin. Dampened paper
(to make it soft)
is placed on top of the plate and then they are
cushioned by blankets
on
top and run through a flatbed press, between two
rollers at several
hundred
pounds of pressure per square inch. This forces the
ink that is down
inside
the lines of the plate onto the paper, leaving a
raised inked line on
the
surface of the paper with the background printing
white where the plate
was wiped clean. In this process the
artist
draws
directly on a copper plate with a sharp needle with
great force. This
leaves
two burrs of copper, one on either side of the
scratched line. It is
mostly
the ink caught in the burrs that forms the image on
the paper in this
case
and not so much the ink in the shallow line. Since the
burrs wear off
rapidly
under the pressure of the printing press and the
abrasion of the
wiping,
only a limited number of copies can be made, often as
few as only 10 or
so, before the plate wears out. This technique is very
rapid and
produces
an image very like a drawing. Dry point lines are
often incorporated
into
etchings and aquatints to add variety of line and
texture to the image. An extremely
difficult and
demanding
(not to mention physically painful!) process in which
the artist begins
by using a special tool called a rocker to
create a
rough,
even texture similar to sandpaper on the surface of
the metal plate. If
this plate were to be printed in this state the result
would be a solid
black image. Everything that is required to print
lighter than this
black
has to be scraped away by hand with a metal tool and
burnished smooth
with
another to produce the gray tones and whites of the
finished print. The
end result is a beautiful and almost photographic
image. Many mezzotint
artists print in color; a separate plate must be
produced for each and
every color and printed individually on top of the
previous print in a
separate run through the press for each plate,
aligning each one in
exact
registration with the previous image. Mezzotints are
often very
expensive,
and this is why. Instead of cutting
directly
onto
the plate the artist covers the plate with acid
resistant wax or
turbaned ground
and then draws on the plate with a special sharp tool
called an engraver's
needle to remove the ground and expose
the metal underneath. The
plate is then immersed in an acid bath which bites
into the plate
where.
the protective covering has been removed. By leaving
different areas
exposed
to the acid for varying lengths of time the depth and
quality of the
line
bitten can be controlled. The finished plate is then
printed in the
same
way as an engraving. Rembrandt van Rijn first
popularized this medium.
Some consider him the father of printmaking as a fine
art form. Although this
process uses
photography
it should not be confused with the Photo-Mechanical
processes. Exactly as in making a photographic
print by hand a
negative
is used, but instead of processing a piece of
photo paper, a
plate,
which has a photographic emulsion coating on the
surface, is exposed to
light. The plate is then developed in an
extremely toxic chemical
/ solvent solution which hardens the unexposed areas
of the
plate.
Then the plate is etched and printed the same way as a
traditional
etching
plate. The artist then also has the option of
re-coating the
plate
with a traditional etching ground (see above) and
drawing back into the
photographic image, or modifying the image by scraping
away areas, or
otherwise
manipulating it by hand. Instead of lines
being
bitten by
the acid bath, in this process whole areas are exposed
to the acid to
give
a texture to the surface of the plate. The area to be
etched is first
lightly
dusted with powdered resin and heated to melt it so it
will adhere. It
is then placed in the acid bath to etch away the tiny
areas not
protected
by the granulated resin. This results in a sandpaper
like texture which
prints as shades of gray, or tints of color if colored
ink is used.
Most
often aquatint is used in combination with engraving
or etching.
However
there are occasional rare examples of pure aquatint.
It is a demanding
and difficult technique that can take years to master
but the end
result
is a print that can have a light and transparent
quality like a
watercolor. Collagraphs are a form of intaglio print related to etching and engraving. They should not be confused with collotypes which are a form of planograph. Sometimes they may be referred to as collage prints or collage intaglio. Collagraphs differ from etchings and engravings in two ways:
Back to menu... Planographic Process: In this type of
print the
image
is
printed from a completely flat surface. It is a
chemical process based
on the principle that oil and water don't mix but
resist each other.
Another
seldom used name for this type of process is resist
process.
There
are
only
two types of prints in this category: lithographs
and collotypes (not to be confused with
collagraphs).
Original
lithographs
should
not be confused with photographically
reproduced
offset
lithography. Original lithos are
done
entirely
by hand, while most offsets are a common everyday type
of reproduction
print. Newspapers and magazines, for example,
are printed this
way.
Fine art posters are produced by the offset process as
well, but more
care
is taken in their creation. Sometimes extra color runs
are added to
improve
the quality, but they still remain photo-mechanical
copies untouched by
the artist's hand. Lithography was invented by Aloys Senefelder in 1798 and immediately became immensely popular as an artistic medium. In this technique the artist actually draws on a specially prepared flat piece of limestone or a metal plate made of either aluminum or zinc. The artist uses a grease or wax crayon or a greasy drawing ink called tusche to create the image just as if he or she were drawing or painting on a piece of paper. In fact, the way the surface is prepared (it is abraded down to a velvety texture by the use of abrasive carborundum powder) makes the stone or plate feel like you are drawing on a very heavy drawing paper. In the case of stone lithography it is a VERY heavy paper substitute; some stones can weigh as much as 300 or more pounds. Forklifts must be used to move the artist's drawing materials around. Stone lithography has gone out of favor in recent years mainly because of the physical demands involved. Also, a much easier and relatively new process called "mylar transfer" (see below). Metal litho plates are very lightweight and portable, but do not produce as fine an image as stone. A good stone lithograph print is almost indistinguishable from an original drawing. After the drawing is
finished on
the stone or plate it is then treated with a mixture
of gum arabic and
dilute phosphoric acid which reacts with the waxy
drawing materials to
produce a type of water repellent soap that will
accept the oil based
printing
ink. During printing the stone is alternately kept
damp with water and
then rolled up with the oil based ink. This is another
extremely
demanding
process. If the stone isn't kept damp enough, or the
water is either
too
acidic or too basic, the whole image can be lost
irretrievably and all
the time spent developing it wasted. The print paper
is placed on top
of
the freshly inked stone or plate. A specially
constructed press has to
be used not only to bear the weight of the stones, but
to support the
extreme
pressures needed to print the image. Instead of a
press with a metal
roller
on top and on bottom like an etching press, the litho
press uses a
narrow
wooden or plastic scraper bar above in
contact with a
greased
sheet of metal or plastic over the print paper.
Pressure of up to two
thousand
pounds per square inch is applied to this stone,
paper, and plastic
sandwich
as it is cranked by hand through the press. As in most
other print
media,
if more than one color is used separate plates or
stones must be made
for
each color. Each new color must be printed again on
top of the previous
runs through the press. In this
technique the
artist
draws the image on a sheet of transparent mylar
plastic. The
image
is then exposed on a photo chemically coated aluminum
plate and then
printed
either by hand or on an offset press. This
process is a very
useful
shortcut to getting precise registration of color in
multiple plate
images
and an added benefit is that the artist does not have
to draw the image
backwards as in the traditional process. A mylar
transfer
lithograph
has no halftone as a photo mechanically produced
poster would, and is
almost
indistinguishable from a lithograph drawn by hand on a
plate. Collotypes: Not to be confused
with collagraphs.
In this extremely rare and miserably difficult
photographic medium the
prints are printed on either a regular etching press
or litho press
from
glass plates (yes, real glass...) coated with a thick
gelatin based
photographic
silver salt emulsion. The image is exposed on the
plate and developed
just
as a regular photograph would be using all the same
chemicals. But
instead
of printing the image on light sensitive paper, the
gelatin plate is
kept
damp in a humidity controlled room (controlled to
tropical jungle
levels
of humidity) so the gelatin will absorb moisture from
the air where
there
is no black silver image protecting it. Some of the
few artists working
in this medium go ahead and use sponges very gingerly
to keep the
gelatin
damp because the act of printing works up enough of a
sweat as it is
without
resulting to subjecting the printer to drudge away in
a sauna. The
plate
is rolled up with an oil based ink which, with luck,
sticks to the
silvered
areas and, with luck, is repelled by the damp gelatin.
Stencil
Process: A stencil is simply
a hole
or an
opening through another material through which ink or
paint is applied
to a surface underneath. It can also be the opposite:
a solid shape
around
which the ink or paint is applied, creating a shadow
effect. Each color
must be applied separately through other stencils cut
or blocked out to
allow the color to line up where wanted on the design.
The stencil
process
along with offset lithography is one of only two print
media in which
the
image is worked as it will be seen when printed, not
backwards mirror
image
as in all other forms of printing. Serigraphs, also
known as
silk
screen
prints and screen prints, are a form of stencil
printing. It is a
process
that first appeared shortly after 1900 and gained
popularity among
artists
by the 1920's. It is one of the most common forms of
printmaking today.
The silk screen printer prepares a screen of finely
woven fabric
(usually
orlon, nylon, or silk) or sometimes very fine steel
screen for large
editions,
stretched over a wooden frame. The areas not to be
printed are painted
out with a glue or varnish that will not be dissolved
by the type of
ink
to be used. This protects these areas of the paper
that are to remain
untouched
by the ink. Photo emulsion films are also used
extensively today
replacing
the older hand painted process. The ink is squeezed
through the screen
onto the paper by a rubber squeegee. Large editions
are possible in
serigraphy
because of the speed and ease (compared to other
printmaking processes)
with which they can be printed. Many artists can do
editions with as
many
as 100 colors or more because of this. Some
multi-color
serigraphs
can resemble paintings more than prints.
Unfortunately however
the
screen process requires the use of many highly toxic
solvents during
the
course of printing an edition, especially when vinyl
based inks are
used. This is an uncommon
process,
first
appearing shortly before 1900 in France. In one
version of this
technique
ink or paint is lightly brushed through an opening cut
through a heavy
paper or metal plate creating a kind of feathering
effect. In the other
version a screen is used as in serigraphy, but with a
much coarser
weave.
Paint is then air-brushed through the stencil onto the
paper. In recent years
there has
been a
trend toward incorporating multiple print media in the
production of
original
prints. Prints that combine two or more unrelated
print processes are
called
combination prints. Some examples are: an intaglio
print with colors
rolled
into different areas of the plate through stencils; a
lithograph
printed
on top of a colored serigraph background; a woodcut
mixed with
serigraphy;
a collagraph used as a color plate behind a woodcut.
The list goes on.
Artists traditionally test the limits of their
preferred media, and
printmakers
have always been known to experiment, as well. The
inherent
unpredictability
of printmaking leads the artist to explore in new
directions. Most
printmakers
have chosen such a demanding form of expression simply
because the
visual
effects made possible with the many print processes
cannot be achieved
by any other means. The viscosity
technique was
developed
by Stanley William Hayter in France in the 1950's. It
is a hybrid
combination
of the intaglio process and the relief
process.
In
this
process
multiple colors are applied simultaneously to only one
plate. To start, the artist creates an intaglio plate
with several
different
levels. The plate is inked up with a stiff ink and
wiped clean just as
a normal intaglio print would be. But then it's rolled
up relief print
style with rollers inked with inks of different
viscosities, or
runniness.
Depending on whether the rollers used are soft or
hard, or whether
pressure
is applied while rolling-up or not, the ink rolled on
to the plate can
be made to adhere to its different levels. Inks of
differing
viscosities
will not readily mix, similar to the way oil and water
don't like to
mix.
So by experimenting with different combinations of
soft roller plus
stiff
ink or hard roller with loose ink, or almost endless
other combinations
the artist can achieve a very rich and painterly
effect with many
colors
in only one run through the press. In this process the
artist
uses
small
pieces of colored or metallic papers instead of (or in
combination
with)
colored inks to create a color print. The papers are
cut into the
proper
shapes to fit within the areas that need color, then
the backs of the
papers
are lightly painted with glue. While the glue is still
wet the colored
papers are placed glue-side-up on top of the
appropriate areas of the
inked
plate. The paper to be printed on is placed on top of
all this and
everything
is run through the press. The resulting effect is that
of a collage. This interesting
cross
between viscosity and offset
printing, though unpredictable, produces
some rather nice
effects.
In this first example the technique requires a minimum
of two rollers,
at least one with a large diameter, and two or more
plates. Normally
only
one of these plates is ever run through the press and
printed on paper,
however. To give a basic example: the artist begins
with a plate that
has
little texture and inks it as an intaglio print. The
other plate is a
relief
plate and is rolled up with a stiff ink. Instead of
printing this
relief
image on a piece of paper, though, the artist takes a
clean un-inked
roller
with a circumference larger than the width of the
relief plate. This
roller
is rolled over the surface or the inked relief and
picks up the image,
offset style, on its surface. The edge of the image on
the roller is
then
aligned with the edge of the inked intaglio plate and
the roller is
pressed
and rolled across that plate, neatly depositing onto
its surface the
image
that was previously picked up from the other plate.
Other looser inks
may
be rolled over this double image to add more color
before it is run
through
the press and printed. The effect obtained is
reminiscent of old
frescoes
or cave paintings. This category includes mostly those types of prints intended to be used as posters. It also includes the common processes used in book, magazine, and newspaper printing. Offset
Lithographic Reproductions: The photo-mechanical
offset
lithos
are the prints that comprise the bulk of the poster
market (not to be
confused
with Original
Offsets. Also,
see above.).
They
are
inexpensive
to print in large quantities so they can be sold at
affordable prices.
Original prints are very labor intensive and therefore
often sell for
hundreds
of dollars each, placing them out of the financial
reach of most
potential
art collectors. The process is the same in principle
as in an original
lithograph, but offsets are printed on huge, high
speed mechanical
presses
often in quantities of thousands of prints at a time.
A big technical
difference
between the two media is the concept of offset
printing. In a hand
printed
original litho the stone or plate is inked up and then
printed directly
on a piece of paper. In the offset process the plate
prints, or offsets
the image onto a rubber roller and then the image is
printed from that
onto the paper. This causes a double reversal of the
image, so the
plate
appears just as the print will appear. The image on
the plate is not a
mirror image of the final image as in the other print
media (with the
exception
of the stencil processes). This is a 19th and
early
20th
century
process and is rarely used today. In this
process
photographically
etched metal plates, usually copper, are wrapped
around metal cylinders
on a special rotogravure press and printed in almost
the same way as an Offset
Lithograph. They can even be
printed as offsets
themselves
on a different version of the rotogravure press, or
can be used to
emboss
special hard paper plates that are then used to print
the image instead
of the metal etched plates. Most magazines and
newspapers of a
century
ago were produced by this process, as well as art
prints and posters. Color
Copies and Giclee' Prints:
Many artists are experimenting with color copy machines as an additional tool for producing an image. Theoretically, original prints cannot be produced in this manner because of the lack of a matrix made by the artist that physically produces the image. The copy machine does just what it says. It makes copies, not originals. However, a copy can be the basic image which the artist then adds to and modifies into a mixed media print. Giclee' prints are another type of color copy produced with the aid of a computer on a large, special ink jet printer. Like other color copies they can be printed in quantity or one at a time. Unlike offset lithographs however, they do not have the half-tone dot pattern, but a smoother and random array of tiny dots of color. Unfortunately, many if not all of these Giclee's are printed with a water based ink, and if any water ever gets on them they will be ruined. |
