Printmaking Quiz

Front 1

How is paper made?

Back 1

Paper is made by distributing a mixture of pulp (plant fibers) on a screen. Excess water drains through the screen, and a flat sheet of intertwining fibers remains. The sheet is pressed and dried.

Front 2

What allowed printmaking to prosper?

Back 2

the development of paper

Front 3

What are the major types of printmaking?

Back 3

1. Relief (wood engraving - end grain)
2. Senography (wood cut - cross grain)
3. Intaglio (incising line into metal plate; metal engraving)
4. Lithography

Other types:
-offset
-photography
-photocopy
-monotype

Front 4

Where was engraving developed?

Back 4

Germany

Front 5

acid free paper

Back 5

paper that has a neutral or basic pH (7 or slightly greater). It can be made from any cellulose fiber as long as the active acid pulp is eliminated during processing. It is also lignin and sulfur free. Acid-free paper addresses the problem of preserving documents for long periods

Front 6

cellulose paper

Back 6

wood pulp, cotton fibers

Front 7

pulp

Back 7

a dry fibrous material prepared by chemically or mechanically separating fibres from wood, fibre crops or waste paper.

Pulp can be either fluffy or formed into thick sheets. The latter form is used if the pulp must be transported from the pulp mill to a paper mill. Pulp which is shipped and sold as pulp (not processed into paper in the same facility) is referred to as market pulp. When suspended in water the fibres disperse and become more pliable. This pulp suspension can be laid down on a screen to form a sheet of paper, and this is the primary use for wood pulp. Wood pulp is the most common material used to make paper. The timber resources used to make wood pulp are referred to as pulpwood. Wood pulp comes from softwood trees such as spruce, pine, fir, larch and hemlock, and hardwoods such as eucalyptus, aspen and birch.

Front 8

watermark

Back 8

A watermark is a recognizable image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations in the paper

Front 9

rag paper

Back 9

cotton fiber

Everyday paper, such as the stuff you put in your computer print and what magazines are printed on, is made from wood fibres (pulp), but some speciality and top-quality art papers are made from fabric fibres (rag), or with a mixture of fabric and wood fibres.

The most commonly used fibre, or rag, is cotton. Because the length of fabric fibres is longer than that of wood, rag-based papers are stronger and tend to take more 'wear', such as scrubbing with a brush.

Rag-based papers are also more archival in quality; cotton, for instance, is naturally PH-neutral.

Front 10

Deckle edge

Back 10

rough, organic edge

Front 11

Weight

Back 11

The thickness of a sheet of paper is indicated by its weight, measured either in grams per square meter (gsm) or pounds per ream (lb). The standard weights of machine-made paper are 190 gsm (90 lb), 300 gsm (140 lb), 356 gsm (260 lb), and 638 gsm (300 lb). It's generally recommended that paper less than 356 gsm is stretched before use to prevent it buckling or warping.

Front 12

Sizing

Back 12

glue - decreases absorbing

Size is added to paper during manufacturing to make it more or less absorbent. The less size there is in a sheet of paper, the more it will absorb the paint.

Size is also the term used for a glue (sometimes made from rabbit skin) put on a canvas before priming to protect it from the oil in oil paint. It's also used to seal wood panels before painting and on plaster, if you don't want the paint to seep into the plaster.

Front 13

Paper Finish

Back 13

The word "finish" essentially means the treatment of the surface of the paper. In other words a paper may feel very smooth or it may feel rough. It is that texture or "finish" that we are referring to.

Front 14

What do you call the printing surface prints are made from?

Back 14

matrix or printing element

Front 15

What is an edition?

Back 15

The term edition refers to a set of identical/consistent prints, typically signed and numbered that have been authorized and pulled by or under the supervision of the artist.

Front 16

What are the earliest printed images?

Back 16

The earliest printed images were relief prints. Carved reliefs capable of making printed impressions predate actual printing by many centuries and are found in the ancient cultures of Egypt, Babylonia, and Rome, but the idea of using carved reliefs to print multiple images such as paper originated in China where the earliest known woodcuts date from the 9th century A.D.

Front 17

What is a relief print?

Back 17

A relief print is an image created by printing from the inked relief (raised) surface of a matrix (plate or block); the parts of the matrix that are to be blank (white) are cut away or otherwise removed. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple matter of inking the face or relief surface of the matrix and bringing it in firm contact with the paper; a printing press may not be needed as the back of the paper can be rubbed or pressed by hand with a simple tool.

Front 18

What techniques are included in the relief family?

Back 18

woodcut, wood engraving, linocut, and some types of collography. Traditional text printing with movable type is also a relief technique, which meant that woodcuts were much easier to use as book illustrations, as they could be printed together with the text, whilst intaglio prints such as engravings had to be printed separately.

Front 19

Who invented lithography?

Back 19

Alois Senefelder invented lithography in 1798. He used the technique to print sheet music.

Front 20

What is the lithography technique based on?

Back 20

The understanding that water and grease tend to repel each other.

Front 21

How is the lithography process done?

Back 21

The artist draws the image directly on a grained limestone using a grease-based crayon or grease-based liquid called tusche. The stone is then prepared for printing by applying a chemical solution of gum arabic and nitci acid and/or phosphoric acid to make it more receptive to water. In order to make the print, the stone is dampened with water, which will not adhere to the image drawn because of hte natural antipathy of grease to water. When ink is rolled over teh stone, it will only adhere to the grease-based image. Then the paper is pressed against the stone, and only the ink on the greasy image is transferred. To create a color lithography, a printing element for each color is used and must be printed separately.

Front 22

Which artists have used lithography?

Back 22

Examples of early artists who used this technique are Goya, Gericault, and Delacroix. But until the late 19th and 20th century it was more seen as a technique for producing commercial printing stuff like advertising posters. Lithography took an upswing with artists like Toulouse-Latrec and Marc Chagall

Front 23

What is serigraphy or screenprinting?

Back 23

Serigraphy, also known as silkscreen or screen-printing, is the process of producing a print or serigraph, by pressing color through a fabric stencil comprised of porous and non-porous sections. The serigraph may be produced onto a fabric, such as a t-shirt, or otehr material such as ceramic, paper, or wood.

Front 24

What is serigraphy is based on?

Back 24

Serigraphy is said to be based on the Japanese art of Katazome, a form of stenciling using waterproof papers that was used in ancient Japan to copy an image. Some say however, that the art originated in teh Fiji Islands where banana leaves were used as stencils. The art of serigraphy as it is known today was patented in England in the early 1900s. The first commercial use of serigraphy in the United States occurred in 1914 when John Pilsworth developed a process to produce mutliple multi-color prints from a single fabric screen, which was used to make multicolored signs and posters.

Front 25

How was serigraphy used in WWI? How is serigraphy used popularly today?

Back 25

During the First World War, serigraphy became the preferred method for printing flags and other patriotic banners because of its ability to create relatively identical and multi-layered images. More recently, serigraphy has been used by artists and manufacturers alike. In fact, most of us probably own a serigraphed t-shirt and many of us have seen Andy Warhol's use of serigraphy in conjunction with photographic headshots of famous people such as Marilyn Monroe.

Front 26

What is the serigraphy process?

Back 26

Serigraphy is a relatively straightforward process. A piece of porous fabric is used as the screen. Originally, that porous fabric was silk, hence the name silkscreen, but today, the more inexpensve alternatives of polyester or nylon are more commonly used. That porous fabric is tautly stretched across a wood or metal frame. Then, the negative areas of the image to be produced are blocked off on the screen with non-porous materials, which can be paper, fabric, or otehr stop-outs. This creates the stencil.

The screen, with the stencil in place, is then placed over the final product, such as paper or fabric. Ink, whether water-or oil-based, is spread evenly over the screen. A rubber squeegee is then used to press the ink through the porous ares of the screen adn onto the paper or fabric below. If the design calls for multiple layers or colors, the ink from teh first press is given time to dry, and the process is repeated with a different stencil or different ink color.

Front 27

What is intaglio?

Back 27

Intaglio is a family of printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a metal plate. Normally, copper or zinc plates are used, and the incisions are created by various techniques such as etching, engraving, drypoint, aquatint or mezzotint. To print an intaglio plate, ink is applied to the surface of the plate and forced down into the incised lines or textures of the plate. The surface of the plate is then wiped with starched cheesecloth, called tarlatan, to remove excess ink while maintaining ink in the incised or recessed textured areas of the plate. The final smooth wipe is often done with the palm of the hand, a newspaper, or pages from a phone book, leaving ink only in the incisions. A damp piece of paper is placed on top and the plate and paper are rn through a printing press that, through pressure, transfers the ink from the recesses of the plate to the paper.

Front 28

Are intaglio techniques combined?

Back 28

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.

Front 29

Where was intaglio invented? How has it been used?

Back 29

Intaglio engraving, a a method of making prints, was invented in Germany by the 1430s, well after the woodcut print. Engraving had been used by goldsmiths to decorate metalwork, including armor, musical instruments and religous objects since ancient times, and the niello technique, which involved rubbing an alloy into the lines to give a contrasting colour, also goes back to late antiquity. It has been suggested that goldsmiths began to print impressions of their work to record the design, and that printmaking developed from that.

Front 30

What are the different intaglio methods?

Back 30

1. Etching
2. Engraving
3. Aquatint

Front 31

What is etching?

Back 31

The artist coats the surface of the metal plate (usually copper) with an acid-resistant ground. Then, with a needle, the artist draws the image into the ground exposing the copper below. The plate is then immersed in an acid bath which cuts lines ("biting") into the plate. After the plate is bitten to the artist's satisfaction, it is cleaned, inked, and printed.

Front 32

What are the steps for an etching project?

Back 32

1. Degrease plate
2. apply a thin, even layer of hardground and let it dry completely
3. Transfter drawing to a plate using tracing paper or transfer paper
4. Work the plate with the etching needle
5. Etch the plate in ferric cholride etch solution for predetermined leng

Front 33

What is an engraving?

Back 33

The design is cut into the surface of the matrix (commonly a copper plate) by a tool called a burin. After inking, the plate surface is wiped clean adn the ink remains in the incised lines.

Front 34

What is an aquatint?

Back 34

This technique is used to create tone and texture in a print. The plate is sprinkled with a powdered resin, heated so the resin melts and clings, then given an acid bath to bit the areas not covered by the resin, creating a porus ground. Aquatint is rarely employed by itself, rather in combination with other intaglio methods.

Front 35

collograph

Back 35

'Collography' (sometimes misspelled "collagraphy") is a printmaking process in which materials are applied to a rigid substrate (such as cardboard or wood). The word is derived from the Greek word koll or kolla, meaning glue and graph, meaning the activity of drawing, which could explain the common misspelling collagraph. (Adding to the confusion, a photo-collagraph is a term to refer to any type of collotype photographic print.)

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collotype

Back 36

Collotype is a dichromate-based photographic process originated in Germany circa 1868 and was used for large volume mechanical printing before the existence of cheaper offset lithography. It can produce results difficult to distinguish from metal-based photographic prints because of its microscopically fine reticulations which comprise the image. Many old postcards are collotypes. While no longer a commercial process, its possibilities for fine art photography were first employed in the United States by Alfred Stieglitz (and more recently in the work of Todd Walker,photographer, in the 1970s).

Front 37

Photography

Back 37

the process, and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a radiation-sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor. Photography uses foremost radiation in the UV, visible and near-IR spectrum.[1] For common purposes the term light is used instead of radiation. Light reflected or emitted from objects form a real image on a light sensitive area (film or plate) or a FPA pixel array sensor by means of a pin hole or lens in a device known as a camera during a timed exposure. The result on film or plate is a latent image, subsequently developed into a visual image (negative or diapositive). An image on paper base is known as a print. The result on the FPA pixel array sensor is an electrical charge at each pixel which is electronically processed and stored in a computer (raster)-image file for subsequent display or processing. Photography has many uses for business, science, manufacturing (f.i. Photolithography), art, and recreational purposes.

Front 38

Digital Printing

Back 38

Digital printing refers to methods of printing from a digital based image directly to a variety of media.[1] It usually refers to professional printing where small run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources are printed using large format and/or high volume laser or inkjet printers. Digital printing has a higher cost per page than more traditional offset printing methods but this price is usually offset by the cost saving in avoiding all the technical steps in between needed to make printing plates. It also allows for on demand printing, short turn around, and even a modification of the image (variable data) with each impression.[2] The savings in labor and ever increasing capability of digital presses means digital printing is reaching a point where it will match or supersede offset printing technologies ability to produce larger print runs at a low price.[3]

Front 39

Photocopying

Back 39

A photocopier (also known as a copier or copy machine) is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process using heat. (Copiers can also use other output technologies such as ink jet, but xerography is standard for office copying.)

Xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in 1959,[1] and it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines. The prevalence of its use is one of the factors that prevented the development of the paperless office heralded early in the digital revolution[citation needed].

Photocopying is widely used in business, education, and government. There have been many predictions that photocopiers will eventually become obsolete as information workers continue to increase their digital document creation and distribution, and rely less on distributing actual pieces of paper.

Front 40

Monotype

Back 40

Monotyping is a type of printmaking made by drawing or painting on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. The surface, or matrix, was historically a copper etching plate, but in contemporary work it can vary from zinc or glass to acrylic glass. The image is then transferred onto a sheet of paper by pressing the two together, usually using a printing-press. Monotypes can also be created by inking an entire surface and then, using brushes or rags, removing ink to create a subtractive image, e.g. creating lights from a field of opaque color. The inks used may be oil based or water based. With oil based inks, the paper may be dry, in which case the image has more contrast, or the paper may be damp, in which case the image has a 10 percent greater range of tones.

Front 41

What is an original print?

Back 41

An original print is a work of art created by and and printed by hand, either by the artist or by a professional assistant (often called an artisan), from a plate, block, stone, or stencil that has been hand created by thea rtist for the sole purpose of producing the desired image. The plates or stencils it is printed from bear no resemblance to the finished work of art, which means it is not a copy or reproduction of anyting. In fact, all print media but two , the image on the matrix is a mirror image or backwards from the what the finished work will be. The image reverses in the printing process so the artist has to htink and draw backwards. Each print produced is technically a unique work although produced as a signed and numbered multiple. The technical term for this is monprint.

Front 42

What is a limited edition print?

Back 42

Vague term. NOT synonymous with "original print"