Original Prints and Printmaking Techniques

Printmaking is an art form in which the image is created through a printing process. The artist works with a printing matrix or a digital workflow to transfer an image onto paper or other materials. Unlike painting or drawing, the finished artwork comes into being through the printing process itself, whether using traditional handcraft techniques or modern digital methods.

An original print is usually produced as a limited edition, with each impression numbered and signed by the artist. Every impression is considered an original work of art, even though several identical impressions of the same image may exist.

Printmaking techniques are traditionally divided into four main categories—intaglio, relief printing, planographic printing, and stencil printing—each based on a different principle for transferring ink to the paper. Today, original printmaking also includes digital processes, in which the digital file serves as the artist's printing matrix.

Although printmaking techniques differ greatly, they all share one fundamental principle: an image is transferred from a printing matrix to a substrate, usually paper. What distinguishes the various techniques is the construction of the printing matrix and the way the printing ink is transferred.

In intaglio printing, the image is recessed below the surface of the printing matrix. Ink is worked into these recessed areas, and the excess ink is wiped from the surface before the plate and paper are passed through a printing press under high pressure.

The various intaglio techniques differ primarily in how the image is created in the plate. The recessed areas may be produced mechanically with tools or chemically through etching.

Common techniques include:

• Etching
• Drypoint
• Engraving
• Aquatint
• Mezzotint

→ Read more about intaglio...

In relief printing, the raised areas of the printing matrix transfer the ink to the paper. The material surrounding the image is removed, leaving the remaining raised surfaces to form the printed image.

The different techniques vary according to the material used and the way the printing matrix is prepared. Woodcut, wood engraving, and linocut are created by carving away the non-printing areas, while letterpress printing uses movable type or other raised printing elements assembled into a printing form.

Common techniques include:

• Woodcut
• Wood Engraving
• Linocut
• Letterpress

→ Read more about relief printing and letterpress...

Planographic printing is based on the principle that grease and water repel one another. Unlike relief and intaglio printing, lithography has neither raised nor recessed printing surfaces. The image and the non-printing areas lie on the same plane, and the print is created through chemical differences across the printing surface.

Lithography includes both traditional stone lithography and metal plate lithography. Modern offset printing is based on the same lithographic principles, but the image is transferred via an intermediate rubber blanket before being printed onto the paper.

→ Read more about lithography...

Stencil printing is based on a simple principle: a stencil determines where the printing ink is allowed to pass. The areas that are not intended to print are blocked, while the open areas allow the ink to pass through, transferring the image to paper or another material.

Screen printing is a form of stencil printing in which the stencil is created on a fine mesh screen. Traditionally, the mesh was made of silk, giving the technique its name, although modern screens are usually made from synthetic materials such as polyester. The screen is stretched over a frame, and the non-printing areas are blocked using a coating or a light-sensitive emulsion. Ink is then forced through the open areas of the mesh with a squeegee.

Unlike the other main categories of printmaking, screen printing builds the image through stencils and successive layers of colour rather than through raised surfaces, recessed lines, or chemical differences on a printing surface. Each colour normally requires its own stencil, and multiple layers may be combined to create complex images.

Screen printing offers artists great freedom in the choice of colours, materials, and formats, and is widely used in fine art, design, and industry.

→ Read more about stencil printing and serigraphy...

Printmaking is no longer limited to traditional printing matrices. Today, many artists work digitally and create works intended to exist as original prints.

In digital original printmaking, the digital working file serves as the artist's printing matrix. The image is created specifically for printing, just as a copper plate, lithographic stone, or screen-printing stencil is prepared for a particular printmaking process.

Digital original prints may be produced in limited editions and printed with long archival permanence using modern pigment inks and acid-free fine art papers. Like other original prints, they are usually numbered and signed by the artist.

Digital tools are also an integral part of many traditional printmaking techniques. Digital files may be used to produce films for exposing screen-printing emulsions, to manufacture photopolymer plates for both relief and intaglio printing, and to control engraving machines for producing printing plates. In these cases, digital technology serves as a tool in the creation of a traditional printing matrix, while the finished work still belongs to the respective printmaking technique.

The boundary between traditional and digital printmaking is therefore not always clear-cut. Many contemporary artists combine digital and analogue methods, allowing modern technology to become a natural part of the printmaking process.

→ Read more about digital printing...

Whether a print is considered an original print does not depend on the technology used, but on how the work was created. A copper plate, a lithographic stone, a stencil, or a digital file can all serve as the starting point for an original print when the artist develops the work specifically through a printmaking process.

All printmaking techniques can also be used to reproduce artworks originally created by other means. Throughout history, engraving, woodcut, and lithography have all been used to reproduce paintings, drawings, and other works of art. Before photography and modern printing technology, such graphic reproductions were one of the principal ways of making art accessible to a wider audience.

Today, most reproductions are produced using digital printing processes. A photograph or scan of an existing artwork may be reproduced with great accuracy, but the result remains a reproduction if the digital file merely reproduces an existing work.

One challenge in today's art market is that some digital reproductions are sold as "prints" and may be both signed and numbered, even though they are not original prints in the fine-art sense. Numbering and signing may document a limited edition, but they do not, in themselves, determine whether a work is an original print.

The distinction between an original print and a reproduction therefore lies in the creative process. An original print is conceived and created through a printmaking method in which the printing process is an integral part of the artwork, whereas a reproduction simply reproduces a work that already exists in another form.

For centuries, printmaking has represented the meeting point of artistic vision, technical knowledge, and skilled craftsmanship. Every technique has its own character and possibilities, yet all are founded on the same essential idea: that the artwork comes into being through the printing process.

At Kunstprenteverket at Landeskogen, these traditions are kept alive through artistic production, courses, demonstrations, and public engagement. The workshop is both a working studio for contemporary artists and a living museum, where historic presses and machinery continue to be used for the purposes for which they were originally built.

From copper plates, lithographic stones, and woodcuts to letterpress, screen printing, and digital workflows, printmaking demonstrates how traditional craftsmanship continues to evolve and find new expressions in contemporary art.