If the composition requires more than one color, the printmaker must repeat the process using a different stencil for each color. The resulting impression follows the direction of the matrix. A thick bead of ink is applied along the top of the inside of the screen and then pulled evenly across the image using a squeegee, an action known as "flooding the screen."Ī sheet of paper is then placed under the screen, and with another pass of the squeegee the ink is pushed through those areas of the screen that are not blocked by the stencil. Once the screen has been prepared, it is placed in hinges affixed to a board or screenprinting table, which has hinges at the top and holes in the surface that allow a vacuum to hold a sheet of paper in place during printing. The emulsion covered by the design remains soft and is then washed out of the screen, leaving the design on the screen. When the exposure unit is on, the design blocks the UV light that hardens the emulsion around the image. The screen is then placed in an exposure unit that emits ultraviolet (UV) light. To transfer the design from the transparency, the screen is first coated with a thin layer of photo-sensitive emulsion using a scoop coater, a metal trough that has a clean, even edge.Īfter the emulsion dries, the design is placed against the screen. Designs can be made by any or a combination of the following ways: hand-drawn with an opaque ink or printed onto the transparency, or cut out of rubylith, an ultraviolet-masking film. The transfer of a design on transparency or Mylar film onto a photo-sensitive emulsion is the most common contemporary method to prepare a screen. Stencils-which can be composed of a wide variety of materials, including fabric, greasy paint, or a design on a transparency-can be applied to the screen in different ways: placing them directly onto the surface of the screen, painting them onto the screen, or by transferring a design onto the screen using a photo-sensitive emulsion. Traditionally these screens were made of silk, but today they are most often made of synthetic materials such as terylene. The ink that passes through forms the printed image.Ī printing screen consists of a fine mesh fabric that is tightly stretched and attached to a metal or wooden frame. Making certain areas of the screen impervious to printing ink creates a stencil, which blocks the printing ink from passing through the screen. Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema, for example, used this technique at the end of the 19th century, as one of the first artists of his time, to sell his 'paper copies' of his original paintings to a wider public.Screenprinting is a process where ink is forced through a mesh screen onto a surface. The name is also used for the final product, the print image. This is etched and printed by inking the deepened surfaces. This involves applying a photographic image in a fixed, light-sensitive layer to a printing plate. You can see it as an early bridge between the analog and digital times.Ī heliogravure (or photogravure) is such a graphic 'analogue' technique to add an image to the printing process. In this process, as the name suggests, a photographic print is made with ink on paper and not with light-sensitive material. This is a very broad term encompassing many different printings, but essentially any photomechanically copied work of art means that it is a reproduction. Let's start with the definition of a photographic printed work of art. The technique enables smooth transitions between the different gray tones.ĥ) Photographic or light printing helio- or photogravure By polishing more or less it is possible to make different gray tones. In those places the ink no longer takes up evenly and therefore the light areas arise in the print. To apply a representation, parts of the roughened plate are processed with a scraping or polishing steel. If you print a fully pre-processed mezzotint plate, you will get a black print. With the mezzotint, the entire copper plate is first roughened with a so-called cradle iron, an instrument with a fan-shaped, serrated head that leaves rows of pits and burrs on the copper plate. There are many different techniques for etching an image into a plate, some examples are mezzotint, aquatint, sugar aquatint and varnish-mou. On the etching press, the damp paper is then pressed into the grooves where it absorbs the ink. A groove is created into which the ink is rubbed. If you then place that plate in a container with etching acid (usually nitric acid), the metal in the lines will be etched away.
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