Printmaking

Printmaking
History
The history of printing started around 3.000 BC in Mesopotamia with the duplication of images. The use of round "cylinder seals" for rolling an impress onto clay tabletsgoes back to early Mesopotamian civilization before 3,000 BCE, where they are the most common works of art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. In both China and Egypt, the use of smallstamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In Egypt, Europe and India, the printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus; this was probably also the case in China. Theprocess is essentially the same - in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until at least the seventeenth century.
Types
There are many types of printmaking.Some are:
*
* Monotype
* Carborundum
* Aquatint
* Intaglio
* Soft varnish
* Mezzotint
* Drypoint
* Etching
* Silk Screen or Serigraphy
* Lithography
*Linocut
* Woodcut
* Serigraph

Process
An original print is an image on paper or similar material made by one or more of the processes described here. Each medium has a special,identifiable quality, but because more than one impression of each image is possible, "original" does not mean "unique." Prints are multiple originals. The development of printmaking was connected to thedevelopment of movable type and the printing press in the fifteenth century, although woodblock printing had been done on textiles since ancient times.
In contemporary printmaking, artists frequently numbertheir prints. The total number of prints made of one image is an edition. The number may appear on the print with the individual print number as a fraction such as 5/25 meaning that this particularprint is number 5 of 25 prints made.
Prints in color require two or more blocks, plates, screens or stones, one for each color, printed sequentially on top of each other to produce the final work of...