syllabus — Printmaking

Common Terms & Vocabulary

Baren (tool)
A flat, circular tool used primarily in relief methods to hand-burnish a print by pressing paper against an inked block or plate. Other methods include using hands or a spoon to press the paper or using a mechanical press.

Bite
The action of acid eating into an unprotected metal plate during the etching process. The duration of the bite determines the depth of the etching and how much ink a line will hold.

Blanket / Press Blanket / Etching Blanket
Wool felt blankets used on an etching press to exert proper pressure as the plate goes through the press. Typically, 3 blankets are used in the following order from bottom of the stack to the top of the stack:
sizing catcher (goes against the paper to absorb), cushion (provides padding), pusher (protects the other blankets from the roller).

Bleed
When ink prints beyond the intended design boundary, either accidentally (like when the ink is too thick or too runny and it bleeds into an area where it is not intended) or by design (like when images are designed to go beyond the crop line so that they can be trimmed cleanly with no gap at the page edge.

Brayer (tool)
A hand roller used to apply ink evenly to a printing matrix (like a block or plate).

Burr
Displaced material thrown up when any sharp point (usually a tool called a needle) is used to draw into a plate. In a method of platemaking called drypoint, the burr clings to the incisions and creates distinctive soft lines in the print.

Chine Collé
A printing technique in which an image is printed on a thin sheet of paper and the thin sheet is bonded onto a backing sheet or heavier support during a single pass through the press. The term also describes the process of using a press to mount paper or other collage material such as cloth to a backing sheet, sometimes with printing on it.

Chop
A small mark or design that is embossed, inked, or stamped that identifies the artist (or printer or studio).

Colorway
An edition or a number of prints from the same matrix with different color schemes.

Deckled Edge
Thin waved edge naturally formed on handmade paper where the pulp thins at the mould edge.

Drypoint
A process of drawing directly into an intaglio plate without using acid. Any abrasive or invasive mark can be a drypoint mark, but generally the artist draws into a plate with a sharp tool called a needle. The displaced material clings to the lines in what is called a burr. The burr is mostly above the surface of the plate and holds ink irregularly. A printed drypoint line is rendered more or less fuzzy depending on how the plate is wiped.

Edition
The prints of any particular image that are offered for sale. Editions normally are printed from plates made to hold ink in the same way each time they are inked. Consequently, prints in an edition (even though printed by hand) are very similar to one another, if not exactly the same. Each limited edition print conventionally bears a fraction-like designation, with the number of prints in the edition on the bottom of a slash mark, and the serial number of the particular impression on the top. Most fine art print shops do not use the serial number to designate the order in which the prints were pulled.
Prints are labeled under the image, left to right: # of print / # in edition, title (if applicable), signature and date.

Emboss / Deboss
Pressing paper into a block, die, or plate to create a raised (emboss) or recessed (deboss) impression. Blind embossing is done without ink.

Etching Needle / Twisted Etching Needle (tool)
A fine-pointed tool used to draw through the ground in etching, exposing the metal beneath to be bitten by acid. Needles can also be used in creating intaglio drypoint.

Ghost Print
A second impression taken from a printing matrix that has not been re-inked after the first print.

Gouge / Linoleum Cutter (tool)
A curved or V-shaped cutting tool used to carve relief blocks.

GSM

GSM stands for grams per square meter, the standard measure of paper weight.

Impression
A single print resulting from one run through a press or one hand-burnished process.

Intaglio
A method or type of printmaking in which the image is printed from below the surface of the plate. Intaglio platemaking normally involves using etching, drypoint, or engraving processes. Intaglio is the only way of printing that can print ink in varying thicknesses. All other methods deposit ink in a uniform layer from the surface of a plate to the surface of the paper or other material. Intaglio is one of the four basic printmaking methods. The others are relief, stencil, and planographic.

Limited Edition
An edition with a fixed total number of prints rather than an open edition. By limiting the total number of prints, the work has greater collection value.

Matrix
A prepared surface from which a print is made. This can include a linoleum block, a copper plate, a plexi plate, a gelli block, a screen, etc.

Monoprint
A singular image created by manipulated pigment on a smooth, un-etched, un-carved surface.
A print marked as V/E (Variable Edition) or 1/1 (edition of 1) indicates that the print is a singular image.

Monotype
A print that is similar to a monotype, but with some element of repeatable mark (ex: a carving, a stencil, or something added to the matrix/surface).

Planar / Planographic

A method or type of printmaking from a completely flat surface where the image and non-image areas sit on the same plane, relying on chemical separation or direct painting rather than raised or carved depths. Common planar processes include gelli printing, lithography, monoprints, monotypes. planographic printing is one of the four basic printmaking methods, which also include relief, intaglio, and stencil.

Plate
A flat piece of substrate, usually copper, zinc, or acrylic, used to create an image that can be printed.

Platemark
The indented impression of the edges of a plate in the paper. If the plate edges have been wiped clean of ink, the platemark will be simply an indentation. Otherwise, it will hold ink unevenly and print as an irregular line. The presence of a platemark is a sign that the print was printed in intaglio, but all intaglio prints do not show a platemark. Sometimes the paper is the same size as (or smaller than) the plate, or the print is trimmed inside the platemark after printing.

Process Colors / 4-Color Process / CMYK
The most common method of achieving color in printing is referred to as CMYK, four-color process, or even just “process.” To reproduce a color image, a file is separated into four different colors: Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y) and Key Color/Black (K). When each color is printed on paper together in properly registered sequence, the original image is recreated.

Reduction Print
A printmaking method, most common in linocut and woodcut, in which multiple color layers are printed from a single block. After each color is printed, more of the block is cut away before the next color is applied. The process is irreversible: once you cut further, earlier states are destroyed, making the number of prints in the edition fixed from the outset.

Registration
A system to ensure that several plates can be printed in accurate alignment, one on top of the other, to make a single print.

Relief
One of the four basic printmaking types or methods, which also include intaglio, stencil, and planographic. Relief printing, the oldest print process, encompasses woodcut, linocut, hand-set type, letterpress, rubber stamps, and related processes like potato prints. The plate or block is incised, but the ink is applied to the top surface rather than to the incisions as in intaglio. Intaglio plates can be printed in relief, and sometimes relief and other processes are combined.

Reproduction
Unlike original prints created directly using a printmaking process (thus making it an original artwork), reproductions are copies of an existing artwork usually produced digitally or mechanically. Reproductions do not retain the same value as the original.

Roulette (tool)
Small wheel on a handle with spiked or textured surface, rolled across intaglio plate to create dotted or grainy lines to add texture or tone.

Scribe (tool)

A fine-pointed tool used to draw on plates through etching ground or for direct mark making like intaglio drypoint. Similar to an etching needle, but broader in use.

State
A distinct version of a print made from a matrix that has been altered between printings. Significant changes such as adding or removing lines, burnishing areas, re-biting create a new state.

Stencil
A method or type of printmaking in which ink is forced through a matrix. Common processes include screen printing and pochoir. In screen printing, also called silkscreen or serigraphy, the stencil is attached to a fabric or wire mesh screen and the ink is pushed through with a squeegee. In pochoir the ink is hand-painted on paper or fabric through a stencil. Stencil printing is one of the four basic printmaking methods, which also include relief, intaglio, and planographic.

Variable Edition (V, VE, V/E, varied edition)
An edition in which prints vary intentionally.