Mediums

Typically, a metal (copper, zinc, steel) plate is covered with a waxy ground that is acid resistant. The artist then scratches off the ground with a pointed XYZ needle in reverse (since a ‘mirror’ image) where they want a line to appear in the finished print, thereby exposing bare metal lines.

The plate is then completely submerged in an acid which eats away at the exposed metal. The amount of time the plate is left submerged will affect how deeply (and thus darkly) the lines will be ‘bitten’ and thus printed.

The plate is removed and inked all over, and then the ink wiped off the surface, leaving only the ink in the incised lines.

Paper is then moistened, placed over the plate and passed under a flat bed press. The pressure forces the paper into the incised lines and pulls the ink out. The print is then examined and if acceptable, hung or laid out to dry. If the print were to be examined under magnification, one would see the ink literally laying on top if the paper, as it was ‘pulled out’ of the grooves in the plate.

Along with engraving, this was the most important technique for old master prints and is still widely used today. Masters known for this technique are: Rembrandt, Goya, Chagall, Miro and Picasso.

He first made this method a vehicle for his Cubist ideas and subsequently exploited the technique’s purity of line in his classical period of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

Picasso said in his later years as he was working vigorously in this technique, that if he only made one print, he still would have made all the 500+ plates he made with this method in his lifetime. Because he so much enjoyed this method with its proofing and re-working process of each image.

Typically chosen for its focus on the qualities of drawing. As a linear technique primarily, artists will often highlight characteristics of their line quality and drawing. Tonalities of light and dark are achieved through the overlaying of lines to build up shadow, known as “cross-hatching.”

Uses the application of acid to create textural surface abrasions in the metal plate. Uses an acid resistant powdered resin which is heated to activate and exposes tiny areas of the metal plate which when ‘bitten’ by acid create tonalities akin to the appearance of watercolor washes.

The tonal variation is controlled by the level of acid exposure over certain areas, and thus the image is shaped by different sections at a time. Each section not intended to be bitten by the acid is covered with an acid resistant ground to protect it. This is known as being, “stopped out.”

Identical to etching, except only areas of the plate not intending to be printed are wiped clean before paper is placed upon the plate to be passed through the press.

Goya was one of the first masters and innovators in this technique in his great masterpiece series’, Los Caprichos, Los Proverbios, Los Desastres de la Guerra, and La Tauromaquia. In the 20th Century, the surrealist Joan Miro contributed greatly to this technique with color and augmented it through further textural enhancements.

Goya was one of the first masters and innovators in this technique in his great masterpiece series’, Los Caprichos, Los Proverbios, Los Desastres de la Guerra, and La Tauromaquia. In the 20th Century, the surrealist Joan Miro contributed greatly to this technique with color and augmented it through further textural enhancements.

The first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line or dot based techniques like hatching or cross-hatching.

Achieves tonality by roughening the plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker." In printing, the tiny pits in the plate hold the ink and print a rich, velvety dark tone (typically, but not always, printed black).

The artist or an assistant under the supervision of the artist ‘smoothes’ down the pitted areas with a tool called a “burnisher” thereby working backwards from black to white. The more smoothed the area, the whiter it will become. A high level of contrast in the print can thus be achieved.

A popular technique for reproducing paintings before the advent of photography, but due to its technical difficulty has become rarely used by modern or contemporary artists. Picasso created one of his graphic masterpieces "the Blind Minotaur Guided by a Young Girl in the Night” using the technique principally. Among Park West artists, American master, Robert Kipniss employs it as his preferred printmaking technique today.

A relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges.

The areas to show 'white' are cut away with a knife or chisel, leaving the characters or image to show in 'black' at the original surface level.

The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with an ink-covered roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface but not in the non-printing areas. The block is then pressed onto a sheet of paper either through a press or rubbed by hand from the paper side. Each impression requires a re-inking of the block.

Was developed during the 15th Century when metal plates began to replace the use of carved wooden printing blocks for the reproduction of works of art. A plate of soft metal is used, often copper, and the design 'cut into' the surface using a tool called a "burin" which is a square tool-steel rod, sharpened diagonally at one end, such that the prominent corner becomes an effective and controllable cutting edge.

A highly skilled 'print'-er uses the burin to cut an image, as a series of lines of varying width and depth, that are a translation of the tones and shadings of the artists original work. Deep lines hold more ink than shallow ones, producing a darker tone when printed.

The degree of faithfulness with which this method can represent the original image from a quite different medium, such as an oil painting, is remarkable, and a testament to the XYZer's own art.

The richness of inking in intaglio prints sets this method apart from other printmaking techniques.

A relief printing technique, where the end grain of XYZ is used as a medium for this method, thus differing from its the older technique where the softer side grain is used.

A design is cut into the X surface with a sharp knife, V-shaped chisel or gouge, with the raised (un-carved) areas representing a reversal (mirror image) of the parts to show printed.

The cut areas can then be pulled from the backing. The X 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.

Picasso and Henri Matisse helped to establish this as a respected medium used for printmaking.

A slab of limestone is ground to a completely level surface. The drawing is made by the artist in reverse of the intended finished drawing directly on the surface with a lithographic crayon or fluid ink that contains grease. Lithography is based on the antipathy of water and oil (grease in this case). When stabilized,
the greasy printer’s inks will adhere to the drawing.

The plate or stone is then wiped with a wet sponge. Water adheres to the vacant (undrawn) areas and does not adhere to the drawn (greasy) areas. Ink is then spread over the plate or stone with a roller,
adhering to the drawn areas only.

Paper is placed over the plate or stone and passed under a flat-bed press. The ink is transferred to the paper from the plate or stone which after the print is removed, examined and stacked to dry, is rolled again for the next “impression” to be printed. In lithography, as in etching and serigraphy, a separate plate or stone is used for each color in the finished print, which must be printed individually (color-by color—plate-by-plate) on each sheet of paper.

This process is based on stencil printing. Stencils are adhered to a porous polymer material screen (silk was previously used thus the term “silk screen”) which is stretched tightly on a frame. The stencils are made of differing types of emulsions and the images may be created by drawing, or painting onto the emulsion by the artist; by cutting shapes into the emulsion; by using photo-mechanical techniques; or by combinations of these. The majority of time in this method is dedicated to the creation of the color separation and the stencils.

Once the stencil image is completed and adhered to the screen, paper is laid beneath it, and ink is forced through the stencil and screen onto paper by a squeegee. This may be done by hand, but often today it is done with elaborate XYZ machines which are fabricated for the precision required in creating these technically challenging prints. They may be printed on differing materials such as paper, canvas, fabric, metal, etc.

As in other techniques, each color requires a separate stencil and printing application. Unlike the other methods, the image is not a “mirror image” of what is upon the matrix (plate or stone), but is a true representation of the image on the screen as ink is passed through it from above to below.

Is chosen typically for its clean, hard-edged quality. Also allows the printing of multiple colors which may exceed 100+, allowing interesting textural applications, gradations of color, both transparency and opacity. It also may be easily used in conjunction with metallic inks, foil stampings, embossing and other “exotic” techniques which the artist may favor.

Innovators in this technique include: Andy Warhol, Erte and Yaacov Agam.

This method is an example of the artist’s use of continually emerging technologies and tools and is a form of ‘digital’ printmaking.

A capture of an existing image is made either through digital photography or by flat-bed scanning of the work. The quality of the image capture is the most important aspect of this method's process, as a poorly captured image cannot be compensated for through the proofing and printing processes.

Once the image is captured, it is loaded into a computer and the digital file becomes the “matrix,” like a plate, stone, or screen in other printmaking media. The artist edits and corrects the digital file and then “proofs” are printed for evaluation. This process continues until the proofs meet the artist’s approval and then the examples may be printed “on order” or all at once and stored as in the traditional techniques.

Fine art XYZs (French for “spray”) are printed on elaborate ink jet printers using special archival inks and must be immediately varnished and protected. In traditional printmaking, each color is printed separately and dried between printings, but here all of the colors are printed simultaneously and are laying on the surface of the material and easily smudged or scraped off. The process allows for literally hundreds of thousands of subtle color combinations to be printed based on the degree of complexity of the captured image and sophistication of the printing machines.

Artists typically select this as their printing medium of choice if their work relies heavily on realism or very subtle techniques of color, light and shadow variation, techniques which are difficult to achieve in traditional printmaking processes. It is currently the fastest growing innovation in the fine art market. This contemporary technology produces precise detail and brilliant coloration. The image resolution is higher than with other graphic mediums, resulting in crisp contrast with rich, intense colors.

Artists who prefer this technique for their graphic editions include Scott Jacobs, Tomasz Rut and Peter Nixon among others. They adorn collections in most large museums of the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, and the Chelsea Galleries in New York City.

Refers to an artwork in the making of which more than one medium has been employed.

Artists can use a combination of graphic and hand-painting techniques to give an image greater texture and depth or to achieve specific results that one medium alone can not produce.

A term used to describe works composed of different media. It began around 1912 with the Cubist collages and constructions of Picasso and Georges Braque and has become widespread as artists developed increasingly open attitudes to the media of art.