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| 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. |
