Hudson River Editions Glossary

Glossary of Printmaking Terms

A la poupee: Intaglio technique by which two or more colors are applied to a single plate.
Aquatint: Aquatint engraving is a fascinating art form, but its name is doubly misleading. It suggests a water colour painting. Yet it is in fact, a monochrome process and it consists of etching rather an engraving. Acid, aquafortis, not hard tools, creates hollows in the metal plate. It is only less texturally rich than the mezzotint and it suggests a far greater extent a freedom of tone akin to the limpid brushwork of water colour.; Aquatint is a complicated process and involves dissolving resin in spirits of wine and pouring the liquid over a highly polished copper plate. The plate is warmed and the spirit evaporates, leaving a granulated surface on the plate, known as the ground. Usually the outline of the subject is etched onto the plate, before ground is applied and the etched lines filled with ink. Sometime the subject was traced or drawn onto the plate.; When it is ready the plate is exposed to acid which bites around the resin granules. As each required tone is reached, the plate is withdrawn and the area of tone covered with a stepping-out varnish. This continues until the darkest tones are obtained, possibly eight or twelve 'bites' being required.; Aquatints could be printed uncoloured or in one or two coloured inks, olive, brown, green or red were used in England. Coloured aquatints were finished by hand and the best examples are difficult to distinguish from water colour. The main disadvantage of the coloured aquatint was the cost of production, long print runs were impractical and it almost ceased to be used in England by the mid-nineteenth century.; In an aquatint one is aware of a surface grain of varying depth and opacity covering almost every part of the print. This may be coarse or fine but is usually consistent texture. It is never a smooth blur but appears as lighter and darker areas of speckled powdery tone rather than the engraver's multitudinous individual lines. A magnifying glass makes this clear.; In contrast to the mezzotint, the aquatint was worked from light tones into ever increasing darkness. The shadows never acquired the intense velvet texture of the mezzotint but the light has a limpid brilliance.
Artists Proof: The practice of signing artists proofs started in the 19th century. An Artists Proof should be signed by the artist and annotated. It is extra to the ordinary numbered editions.
Bon a tirer (BAT): The "right to print" proof, designated by the artists, against which all others are to match.
Burnishing: A method of smoothing a metal plate to eliminate recessed marks to create highlights and tones.
Cancellation Proof: Proof from a defaced or marked plate, block, or stone to indicate the end of an edition.
Carborundum: Abrasive powder used in relief print to produce tonal effects similar to an aquatinit.
Chine colle: Technique for attaching thin pieces of colored paper to the larter printing paper, when put through the press, the inked image prints on both sheets.
Chop: Embossed mark of a printer, publisher, artist, or collector on the edge of a print.
Collograph: From the French coller, to glue, and the Greek graphos, to write. A print made from various materials glued to a cardboard, metal or hardboard plate.
Dry Point Etching: Is an engraving with an etching needle upon a plate without the use of any acid. The needle used has more of a cutting edge than the rounded point used when upon the etching ground. In dry-point the etcher commences at once upon the bare copper plate without any ground.; In drawing the design the needle tears up the copper and leaves what is known as a burr- a ridge of copper on either side of the furrow. It is this burr which gives the quality to dry-point etchings when they are printed.; This burr is removed with a scraper when dry-point is used in conjunction with "bitten-in" work.
Edition: Number of impressions pulled by or under the supervision of the artist, usually numbered and signed, excluding artist's proofs, trial proofs, and any others outside the edition.
Embossing: Print with slightly raised impression to produce a three-dimensional impage (gauffrage).
Engraving: Oldest intaglio process in which an image is produced by cutting directly into a metal plate witih a sharp engraving tool. The deth of an engraved line depends on the angle and pressure on the cutting tool.
Ground (hard): An acid-resistant coating to protect non-image areas of the etching plate from the acid usually composed of asphaltum, beeswax, and rosin.
Hand-made Paper: Sheet of paper made individually, characterized by an irregular or deckled edge, which contributes to the unique appearance of the print.
Impression: A print made directly from an inked stone, plate, or wood block.
Intaglio: The method of printing used for metal plates worked as Engraving, Etching, Drypoints, Mezzotints, Stipples and Aquatints.; The paper receives the ink from the incised lines and not from the surface of the plate. The ink is pressed into the lines with a pad called a "dabber". Any left on the surfaced is removed by wiping muslin across the plate and the process is usually complete with the palm of the hand.; The paper is dampened and passed through a press on a board that slides between one or two rollers. The pressure must be strong enough to force the damp paper into the lines and lift the ink out onto the paper.; Considerable varieties of effect can be obtained by wiping so as to leave a film of ink on the surface of the plate.; An Intaglio print can be normally recognised by the plate mark and by the fact that the ink stands up from the paper in a very slight relief, which can be often detected by touch.
Iris Giclée: Iris printing is a relatively new and exciting printmaking process and is the first digital process accepted and collected by major museums. It is a process that still rises above the emerging digital processes especially the glowing.....tk
Limited Edition: The practice of limiting the number of impressions of a print is a relatively recent development, first seen in the late 19th century.; An artist number such as 6/20 indicates that the impression was the 6th out of 20 prints. When the edition is complete the plate or block was defaced and known as canceling.
Lithography: A planographic or surface technique ("stone drawing") invented by Alois Senefelder in 1797. The image is drawn with greasy tusche ink or litho crayon onto a slab of limestone (usually Bavarian) or aluminum plate; the process depending on the antipathy of grease and water. The printing surface is then treated with a solution of gum Arabic and nitric acid, called an etch, which stabilized the image. The surface is sponged with water, then rolled with greasy ink. Wet areas repel the ink, but the tusche or crayon marks hold it and yield the printed image.
Mezzotint: Mezzotint may be regarded as the noblest of prints, aloof from the general run of inexpensive treasures. No better method has ever been found for expressing tone and texture in monochrome. The copper mezzotint block yielded only a few superb prints, no more than fifty and perhaps another fifty of lesser quality. The engraver was aware that the quality depended entirely on the quality of each contributory factor- copper, ink and paper. From the 17th-19th centuries mezzotint was known as la maniere anglaise.; In a mezzotint one is impressed first by the depth and intensity of the shadow that serves as a foil to the delicate detail of burnished brightness. Areas of part shadow show a limitless range of grey tones and the darkest areas a velvety blackness.; It involved a difficult technique. It depended like dry-point, that the engraver's burin, cutting lines into his copper plate, threw up a fragment of metal burr to the side of every cut. When not removed this burr readily absorbs the ink and would print a massy blackness. The different tones presenting every detail of the pure mezzotint were printed entirely by such burrs, modified by the engraver.; The surface had to be worked over in different direction, producing thousands of crossing lines of dots, each with its accompanying raised burr. The grain was coarse or fine according to the closeness of the tool's serration - from about 50 to 200 on a two inch blade.; The first professional master engraver in mezzotint in England was Abraham Blooteling, who arrived from Amsterdam in 1672 and the first English professional was William Sherwin. Blooteling's mezzotint portraits were after the fashionable artist, Sir Peter Lely.; The great mezzotint period began around 1750. By then the technique was fully established. Both the copper plate and ink were of a quality to suit such delicate work, although the fine paper still had to be imported.; A mezzotint is easy to recognise because of the distinctive manner in which the design emerges from the black background.
Monotype: A monotype is a unique print that has been painted by the artist on a plexi-glass or copper plate and then transferred from this surface under an etching press, directly onto etching paper. It is an image that, once rendered, will never again appear exactly the same. The monotype retains the same artistic expression of the artist's paintings and drawings, but the results have a very special effect that cannot be reproduced in any other way. Artists have been making monotypes since the 17th century and this process became extremely popular among artists in the 19th century, popularized by Edgar Degas. John Beerman has a strong affinity to the works of the artists of the 19th century, both in his painting asn in his printmaking. New York critics have called him a modern day luninist. Beerman has been making prints with Master Printer Sylvia Roth at Hudson River Editions for over 20 years.
Numbering: The number of the particular print and the size of the edition are indicated under the printed image on the left side, i.e., 4/20.
Print: Image on paper or other material obtained from an inked block, plate, collage or stone by applying pressure. Also called and impression.
Reduction block print: A relief print (usually woodcut) made by alternately cutting and printing the same block, working from light to dark colors.
Registration: Systsem used to correctly align the plate, block or screen of a color print.
Relief: Method by which the inked, raised surface prints the image and the cut-away non-image areas do not print (woodcut-linocut).
Rosin: Organic substance, usually powdered, that melts when heated and is used mainly for aquatint grounds (also resin).
Screenprint: Also called a serigraph or silkscreen. A stencil process using a fine silk or synthetic mesh stretched over a frame. After the image has been created by the use of block-out materials, ink is forced through the mesh by a squeegee. A separate screen or stencil is generally required for each color.
Soft Ground: Acid-resistant coating used in etching, containing tallow to prevent it from hardening, is applied to the plate. An image is created by drrwaing firmly on a paper laid over it, making a clear impression on the ground. When the paper is lifted, the marked areas pull away with it, and the plate is then bitten with acid. A soft ground etched line can simulate the effect of a chalk or pencil line.
Spit bite: Aquatint technique for achieving subtle tonal effects by applying acid to the plate with a brush containing saliva.
State proof: Proof pulled from a plate, block, or stone still being worked on to see its status at that stage, usually numbered in order of execution to keep apart from the final version.
Trial Proof: TK
Ukiyo-e: TK
Woodcut: The oldest form of printmaking. A relief print created by cutting from a wood block with special tools all the areas that will not be printed (the opposite of the intaglio process). When the remaining raised areas are inked and printed, the cut away areas show as white on the print.
Wood engraving: End grain of a block of wood that is cut and inked on the surface to reveal a relief image.
Working proof: A trial proof in which the artist has added work by hand.