Printmaking produces images with visual qualities that are very different from those obtained through drawing or painting directly, and each technique adds its own peculiarities to the way each piece is conceived. Each of these techniques involves the use of a matrix or original surface which is manipulated in different ways, and from which multiple prints are produced. Each of these prints is an original, since they are not reproductions of another work of art.
However, with its odd and alchemical combinations of unusual materials, specific tools and enormous machines, Printmaking is often a strange and foreign territory even for artists accustomed to studio work on other disciplines.

While there are a great many different techniques, some of them done in ways dictated by ancient tradition and others spawned from modern technologies, it all comes down to four main categories:
Relief, Intaglio, Planographic and Screen Printing. These basic categories contain within themselves every specific category currently used by deviantART, and other important techniques not considered there, but also used by many deviants.
In this series, each of these main categories will be broken down so everyone can fully understand and appreciate the process involved in the making of the images you see in the Printing Gallery.

Planographic

: Including lithography, zincography and monotype.

Planographic Printing departs from the techniques previously reviewed in that the printing surface is a flat plane and is neither built up nor cut into. As other Printmaking techniques were based on the matrix being somehow marked to produce an image, Planographic matrixes retain their surface intact and the image is produced by a chemical process (in the case of Lithography and techniques spawned from it as zincography and offset), or by "picking it up" from a non-absorbent surface (Monotype).

Monotypes date as far back as 1640, when Italian painter Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione created the technique which was used by few until brought back to popularity by Degas.
Lithography was invented in 1796 by Alois Senefelder, who intended to call it "chemical printing", since the process depends on the chemical interaction of grease, nitric acid, gum arabic, and water, rather than the stone from which the name lithography is derived (lithos, "stone" + graphο, "to write"). Technical difficulties prevented its popularity at first, and while Delacroix and Goya used it with success and its commercial use was widespread, its artistic revival came in after 1870 with Degas, Odilon Redon and most notoriously, Toulouse-Lautrec.

As we have seen on previous articles, these techniques are also worked keeping in mind that the image in the print will be a mirror image of the one in the matrix, since matrix and paper are pressed face-to-face. The artist also works in positive, that is, that the actions taken on the surface of the matrix will be the inked areas on the final print.

Lithography, Zincography: These techniques, each with their own particularities, share the common principle invented by Senefelder: the division of the surface of the matrix in hydrophobic (which repel water) and hidrophilic (which bonds with or accepts water)areas. Originally done in smooth, finely grained limestone blocks (from which the technique got its name, as we have seen), the artist draws the image using the same kinds of tools used for images on paper or canvas. However, since the basic principle of lithographic printing is the natural repulsion of grease and water, the crayons, pencils, and washes used in lithography have a high grease content.

On ~Netdog's photo, the stone with the first drawing can be seen, as well as a grease crayon. All drawing materials are black, regardless of the final color of the print, since what's important on this stage is that the grease gets deposited on the stone. The borders of the stone are painted with gum arabic to clearly define the margins of the image and protect it from the natural grease present on the artist's hands, which could get into the stone and result in unwanted markings.

After the artist has finished drawing on the plates or stones, the printer sprinkles rosin on the surface to protect the drawing. Then he or she powders the surface with talc which helps the chemical etch lie more closely to the tiny grease dots which compose the drawing. The etch solution (gum arabic, weakly acidified with nitric acid) is then applied, but its function is not to "etch" the image into the surface of the stone as we learned in Intaglio. What it really does is penetrating into the pores of the stone, completely surrounding the original image with a water-friendly layer that will not accept the printing ink. Using lithographic turpentine, the printer then removes any excess of the greasy drawing material, but a water-repellent molecular film of it remains tightly bonded to the surface of the stone, rejecting the gum arabic and water, but ready to accept the oily ink. Now, the greasy image is barely visible in the stone.

To print the image, the stone is kept wet. All the non-image areas will attract water and repel the ink which is applied to the stone with a rough leather or rubber roller, while the water-repellent areas left by the original drawing material accept it. A special printing press provided with a "scraper" (a hard, squeegee-like blade) exerts the pressure needed to transfer the image from the stone onto the paper, and for every new color, a separate stone must be drawn and processed.

Zincography was first mentioned by Lithography's creator Alois Senefelder. Zinc plates were an economic, larger-scale alternative to lithographic limestones, and with only a few changes in the process (such as replacing nitric for phosphoric acid) very similar results were attained. Aluminium plates are currently also used as a replacement for the rapidly disappearing limestones.

Complex? You bet! I'm sure it will make you appreciate even more the effort behind each of these images:






DYK? Most of the everyday, mass-produced items with graphics and print on them are printed with a variation of this technique, called Offset Lithography?

Monotype: This Planographic technique challenges one of Printmaking's main features, which is the "multiple original" concept (each print of the limited series is an original work of art in itself). Monotyping results in a single, unique print because it's made by painting or drawing the image in a featureless plate and then transferring it onto a sheet of paper. However, the results are distinctly graphic and their unique quality cannot be compared to those obtained by directly drawing or painting on paper.

Phantom of a scaffold by ~LisaLins shows some of Monotype's unique characteristics: expressive markings, high-definition areas, contrasting elements and a loose, free quality.

Invented in 1640 by Italian painter Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, the matrix's surface (traditionally polished copper plates, currently any smooth, non-absorbent material such as glass or acrylic) has no permanent marks to be transferred, so the entire image depends on the unique inking and results in a unique print. The image is often executed with no previous sketch, painting or drawing on the surface of the plate. Reductive methods are often used, rolling ink on the entire surface and then removing it with brushes or rags to create light.
Printing is done by pressing a sheet of paper against the matrix, and while using a printing press will result in more defined, sharper images, it can also be done by hand which makes this a great introductory technique because it doesn't require an equipped studio.







DYK? If you use oil-based paints and dry paper, your Monoprint will turn out more contrasted, and if you use damp paper you'll have an increased tonal range?

Next Issue: Screen Printing
Previous Issues:
Printmaking Series Two - Intaglio Printing II
Printmaking Series Two - Intaglio Printing I
Printmaking Series One - Relief Printing