If you are not familiar with printmaking, I wrote this for you. Here I will describe printmaking and a few print techniques. When I speak of printmaking, I am referring to the production of images that are hand-pulled by the artist or printer. I am not speaking of reproductions such as giclee or other strictly mechanical modes of output for photos and digital files.
The most basic description of the printing process is this: Images are prepared on a surface and then physically transferred to a substrate, often paper. This transfer is called printing.
Images may be printed on paper, fabric, or any other flat material the artist chooses. A variety of techniques are employed for the preparation of images, each with it's own strengths and limitations. Common techniques include: intaglio, relief, lithograph, serigraph, and monotype. Prints, though often multiples, are considered to be originals. Printed images are not necessarily reproductions, they are often conceived and composed within the chosen medium.
-Intaglio: A print process where the ink is wiped over a printing plate and then wiped off. The ink remains in textured areas to be transferred. Smooth areas wipe clean leaving the color of the paper visible. Intaglio prints are usually printed from copper or zinc plates with the aid of an etching press. Plates for intaglio printing are prepared with a variety of processes. Lines can be engraved with a burin, etched with acid, or scratched with a drypoint needle. Tones can be applied with aquatint or mezzotint techniques. Marks can be removed by scraping and burnishing the plate.
-Relief: A print process where the topography of the matrix defines where the ink lands. Relief prints include woodblock and linocuts. Ink is rolled onto the matrix with a roller, or brayer. The ink collects on the raised areas, recesses remain clean. The ink is transferred to paper, often with the help of a press or a baren. A rubber stamp is simple a relief print.
-Lithograph: Lithography relies on the separation of oil and water. Litho stones or ball-ground aluminum plates are treated by the artist to make some areas hydrophobic and others hydrophilic. The printing surface is kept wet during inking. The hydrophilic areas hold onto water and repel oil based ink. The hydrophobic areas repel water and hold onto the ink. Lithography requires a lithography press to transfer the image to paper.
-Serigraph: Often referred to as a screenprint. A screen of silk or synthetic material is stretched on a frame and treated to allow ink to pass through some areas and not others. Ink is pushed with a squeegee through the screen onto paper, fabric, or any other flat surface. This is a stencil technique.
-Monotype: A monotype is a print that cannot be made in multiples. A monotype uses any variety of printmaking tools to make a unique one of a kind image. i.e. Inks may be painted on a plexiglass plate and transferred to paper using a press. Drawings may be made on a screen and transferred with a squeegee, using transparent medium, through the screen onto a paper. The transfer process makes it a print. That the marks are not defined by a matrix makes it a monotype.
For over 500 years these processes were the primary technologies responsible for the dissemination of information. The first book printed from moveable type, The Gutenberg Bible, was hand-printed in Germany 1455. The first newspaper printed from a fully automated steam powered press was printed in London 1814. As the technology of sharing information has become more automated and, now, digitized, hand-pulled prints have become more of a rare commodtiy than a necessity. Today these objects are reserved for craftspeople, art lovers, and artists, like myself, who appreciate the process and aesthetic inherent to these techniques.