About Printmaking

Linocuts

What is linocut? Maybe you remember it from school? A linocut is a type of relief, or block print, and is a variant of woodcut printing. Essentially, the artist carves an image into a linoleum block, then the block is inked and printed.

A design is cut into the linoleum surface with different sized sharp tools with the raised uncarved areas representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts to show printed. The linoleum sheet is inked with a roller also called brayer and then impressed onto paper or fabric. The actual printing can be done by hand with something a simple spoon, or tool called a barren or a printing press.

Since the material being carved has no wood grain therefore tend not to split, it is easier to obtain certain artistic effects with lino than with most woods, although the resultant prints lack the angular grainy character of a woodcut.

Linocuts can also be achieved by the careful application of art on the surface of the lino. Colour linocuts can be made by using a different block for each colour.

Due to ease of use, linocut is often used in schools to introduce children to the art of printmaking; similarly, non-professional artists often cut lino rather than wood for printing. Nevertheless, in the contemporary art world the linocut is an established professional print medium, because of its extensive use by the artists of the Grosvenor School, Henry Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

Drypoint

Drypoint is a technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate with a hard-pointed tool called a "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically identical to engraving. The difference is in the use of tools, and that the raised ridge along the furrow is not scraped or filed away as in engraving.

Traditionally the plate used is copper but now zinc or Plexiglas is also commonly used. Artists can also use up cycled Tetrapak packaging to draw in.

Like etching drypoint is easier to master than engraving for an artist trained in drawing because the technique of using the needle is closer to using a pencil than the engraver 's burin. The needle creates a mark called a burr; the thickness or softness depends on the pressure applied when using the sharp tool.

Etching

Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types of material. As a method of printmaking along with engraving the most important technique of old masters and remains in wide use today.

In traditional pure etching, a metal plate (usually of copper, zinc or steel) is covered with a wax ground, which is resistant to acid. The artist then scratches off the ground with a pointed etching needle where the artist wants a line to appear in the finished piece, exposing the bare metal. The plate is then dipped in a bath of acid, known as the mordant is a French word for "biting") or etchant, or has acid washed over it. The acid "bites" into the metal (it undergoes redox reaction) to a depth depending on time and acid strength, leaving behind the drawing (as carved into the wax) on the metal plate. The remaining ground is then cleaned off the plate. For first and renewed uses the plate is inked in any chosen non-corrosive ink all over and the surface ink drained and wiped clean, leaving ink in the etched forms.

The plate is then put through a high-pressure printing press together with a sheet of paper (often moistened to soften it). The paper picks up the ink from the etched lines, making a print. The work on the plate can be added to or repaired by re-waxing and further etching; such an etching (plate) may have been used in more than one state.

Monoprinting and monotyping

Both techniques are similar but not identical. Both involve the transfer of ink from a plate to the paper, canvas, or other surface that will ultimately hold the work of art. In monoprinting, an artist creates a reusable template of the intended image. Templates may include stencils, metal plates and flat stones. This form of printing produces multiple prints from the same template. Monotyping, in contrast, involves the use of an impermanent image that degrades after just one print. For example, one form of monotype transfers painted images from a gelatin plate onto a sheet of paper. Upon completion, the image no longer remains on the gelatin plate.

Monoprints can be thought of as variations on a theme, with the theme resulting from some permanent features being found on the template - lines, textures - that persist from print to print. Variations are endless, but permanent features of the template will persist from one print to the next.

Monoprinting has been used by many artists, among them Georg Baselitz.