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A Printmaker's Guide to Printmaking and Prints

© Gretchen Wms. Jurek

This month I have decided to turn more inward, and describe to you what I have learned and done in printmaking over the past few decades. With the recent renewed interest in this form of artmaking, I find that I run across quite a bit of confusion, even among other artists. I will try to clarify as much of this area as I think you can tolerate, without, hopefully, becoming too pedantic and detailed. Anyone who might want to know more need only to e-mail me, and I can put you onto lots more information, either from my own knowledge, from other sites on the Internet, or even printed paper books!

First off, I want to dive right in to the term "print." What is a print? Nowadays, this word seems to mean a commercially reproduced offset lithograph of an original work, reproduced in enough quantity to make the price attractive to most buyers. What it means to an artist is a piece of work hand-pulled off a printing press, most often an etching press. It can mean a single work printed without the use of a press, too, such as one can execute by laying down a piece of thin paper over the inked plate, and burnishing it so that the image is transferred. With the use of a press, the prints can be multiples of one image, such as an original etching in an edition, or only one image, such as a monotype. Right away we have run into some more terms here which might be unclear. Printing press, etching press, multiples of one image, monotype.

Without going into much detail, I will say that a printing press consists of a flat bed, usually up on legs, with a series of gears that make the bed move back and forth, and a large top roller, or drum, which presses down on the bed, or on whatever is on top of the bed. I won't go into the terms of intaglio and aquatint, and the other kinds of etching that can be done, but I will explain that an etching has the image etched into a metal plate by means of acid baths. The plate is washed clean. Then the intaglio ink is applied so that it goes, with the aid of heat, into those little etched lines and areas, is wiped off the surface of the plate, has a piece of dampened paper laid on top, and then is run through the press, under so much pressure that the ink is squished out of the recessed lines onto the paper. When the bed is out from under the large drum, the paper is lifted off, and VOILA! a print! Whether or not it is what the artist hoped for is another matter! The image is cut into (intagliato) the plate, so it can be repeated over and over, until the edges of the little lines begin to break down. This can be hundreds of times, each time requiring re-inking of the plate and a pass through the press. This leads to an edition of (blank) number of prints. A couple of centuries ago, an enterprising art marketer determined that people would probably be willing to pay for an early print in the edition, when the plate is still fresh and new. Thus the numbering system was developed - 1 over 500, say, for the first pull in 500. It worked!

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