Printmaking

GEORGE ROBERTS developed Polyester Plate Lithography, a new and nontoxic form of lithographic printing while he was Professor of Printmaking at Boise State University. George sadly died in 2001.

The process is more straightforward than conventional lithography as the plate does not require chemical processing in the form of etching with nitric acid etc. Some print shops still use fountain solution and strong acids for printing and processing. The most common problem encountered when printing a polyester plate is “scumming”, when the plate starts picking up ink in areas where it is not wanted.

The clarity of the print is largely determined by the consistency of the ink. An ink that is too soft and viscous (oily) will result in smudging, while a very stiff ink gives a crisp mark, but makes a heavier demand on the durability of the plate. An overly stiff ink may even rip toner marks or other drawing media off the plate during rolling up. As a remedy, use a softer ink and ensure an amount of heat curing before printing. As most of the drawing media used in Polyester Plate Litho are akin to the materials used in ACRYLIC RESIST ETCHING, many of the requirements are similar. Acrylics like heat to aid polymerization, and the new litho process is no exception.

Lindsey Strawn rolling up a pronto plate, Columbia College Chicago

Bernadeta Szopinska. Polyester plate lithograph made using a range of oil and litho crayons, Sharpie, ballpoint pen, and acrylic wash media
Columbia College Chicago, 2008

Laura Shields, polyester plate lithograph

Solarplate etching is a new alternative to traditional metal plate etching, which does not require the use of grounds and acids. Solarplate is a light sensitized steel backed polymer material used by artisits as an alternative to hazardous printing techniques. It’s a simple, safer, and faster approach than traditional etching and relief printing.

Step one: prepare artwork

Artwork may be created with liquid opaque paint or ink, light-stopping making devices, rubylith films, lithographic crayons and certain black pencils, or found objects. The image is created on transparent acetate, mylar, Xerox or a glass surface. This “transparency” is used as a contact positive or negative for either intaglio or relief. Artwork can be created by hand drawing,
computer printout, or with photographic methods.

Step two: expose plate to UV light

When exposing with the sun, set up your Solarplate indoors, and away from direct sunlight. Sandwich the plate and transparency between thick plate glass  with a rigid board. Clamp the entire unit together and expose it to the sun, or artificial U.V. light source, perpendicular to the rays.
Best results are achieved at noontime in strong sunlight, an average time would be 90 seconds in the summer in northeast United States.
Once the plate has been exposed, bring the entire unit indoors. The exposure is repeated however the time may differ.
NOTE: The darker or more dense the transparency—the longer the exposure; The lighter or more delicate the transparency—the shorter the exposure. Times can vary from 3 minutes down to 15 seconds.

Step three: rinse plate in water

WASH OUT (etching)

The washout process is a substitution for the “etch” process In traditional Intaglio. Sixty-eight degree water is used instead of acid. Gently, scrub the entire image with a soft nylon scrub brush for about two minutes or longer. During the washout, the protected areas will be removed from the surface, creating an intaglio surface. You can control the washing time and stop at any desired moment. After completing the washout, quickly blot with newsprint or phone book pages.

Step four: harden plate

Post Expose the plate for 5-10 minutes; longer post exposure will not harm the image

Step five: filing the plate

Before inking, eliminate the sharp corners of the plate with a file.

Step six: print plate

Printing may be done in either relief or intaglio. Plate thickness is less than standard zinc or copper and presses should be adjusted accordingly. Although hand printing may be accomplished by traditional rubbing techniques, a press is more desirable for ease, consistency and quality. Any quality printmaking paper may be used.

Intaglio (pronounced in-TAL-ee-oh) is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface, known as the matrix or plate. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used as a surface, and the incisions are created by etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or mezzotint. Collagraphs may also be printed as intaglio plates. To print an intaglio plate, ink is applied to the surface and then rubbed with tarlatan cloth to remove most of the excess. The final smooth wipe is often done with newspaper or old public phone book pages, leaving ink only in the incisions. A damp piece of paper is placed on top and the plate and paper are run through a printing press that, through pressure, transfers the ink from the recesses of the plate to the paper.

Intaglio techniques are often combined on a plate. For example Rembrandt’s prints are referred to as “etchings” for convenience, but very often they have engraving and drypoint work as well, and sometimes no actual etching at all.

Drypoint is the most direct of all intaglio techniques. A sharp drypoint needle and a metal plate (or plexiglass) is all you need. Copper is ideal, but you can achieve almost same desired effect with plexiglass sheets, which are more cost efficient. The image is produced by scratching the surface with a sharp needle creating grooves on the surface. Those grooves will hold the printing ink.

See some of the student samples from P2:Linocut… more to come soon.

In printmaking, an edition is a number of prints struck from one plate, usually at the same time. There may be a limited edition, with a fixed number of impressions produced on the understanding that no further impressions (copies) will be produced later, or an open edition limited only by the number that can be sold or produced before the plate wears. Most modern artists produce only limited editions, normally signed by the artist in pencil, and numbered as say 67/100 to show the unique number of that impression and the total edition size.

Read the article by Ken Johnson for the New York Times, on “Philagrafika 2010,” then write your opinion about” Is printmaking dead?”

Click on image to see Philagrafika’s website:

And here’s Philagrafika’s blog:

Relief printing is one of the oldest forms of printmaking and accessible to everyone, even those without a press. In relief printmaking, the uppermost surface of the material is inked-up, and printed from, as with a rubber stamp. The cut marks below the surface do not receive any ink and therefore will not print.

Linocut technique: a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for the relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised (uncarved) areas representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts to show printed. The linoleum sheet is inked with a roller (called a brayer), and then impressed onto paper or fabric. The actual printing can be done by hand or with a press.

Although linoleum as a floor covering dates to the 1860, the linocut printing technique was used first by the artists of Die Brücke in Germany between 1905-13 where it had been similarly used for wallpaper printing. They initially described their prints as woodcuts however, which sounded more respectable.

As the material being carved has no particular direction to its grain and does not tend to split, it is easier to obtain certain artistic effects with Lino than with most woods, although the resultant prints can lack the often angular grainy character of woodcuts and engravings. Lino is much easier to cut than wood; especially when heated, but the pressure of the printing process degrades the plate faster and it is difficult to create larger works due to the material’s fragility.

MONOTYPE:
The printing of an image from a clean, unworked surface containing no scratching or carving (in contrast to an etching plate or woodblock).

A monotype is, as its name implies, a one-of-a-kind image. Ink is applied in any of a multitude of ways to a smooth surface and then transferred to paper. Unlike most printmaking processes, a monotype image is not reproducible: each print is a unique impression. Monotypes have been called the most painterly of prints, because if ink is applied to the plate with a brush, the resulting print may display brushmarks quite similar to those of a painting.

by Josh Burch

by Nathan Oliveira