What is PRINTMAKING?

Updated: Mar 22, 2021

What is Printmaking?; How do I get involved in My Voice Media Center?

Join My Voice Media in Printmaking, one of the oldest forms of art.

"Introductions to new art forms can help a Participant develop strength in Art and Individuality in themselves"; Halonnah Kay, Project Coordinator

In all of our Sessions we are proud supporters of Mental Illness. We are a Mental Health Outreach Project, housed in the Arts Consortium, in Visalia, CA. To become a Participant, you just need to fill out an application and have lived-experienced mental health in your life. We are an Art Community here, at My Voice Media Center and welcome adults into the art community by providing you with FREE Art Sessions, peer support, connections to becoming part of No Stigma Speakers Bureau and other activities. One of our Sessions is a Session called "Printmaking". This form of art has been around for many, many years, centuries in fact. This medium is a way for an artist to repeat and reproduce the same image, many times. This process can be done in several different ways. In having different ways to print, the artist creates a solid block, or plate, of a work, and inks the plate. Then, the artist is ready for printing. A special paper is sometimes soaked in water and patted dry and ready to be pressed with the plate and ink for the first printing. The plates are resilient and can be used many times for many prints, being inked over and over. The challenged is to get the right amount of ink on the plate and position the paper correctly into the press. The press itself looks like a big rolling pin, on a special table with a wheel or mechanism to roll the wheel over the plate. The plate and paper are protected between blankets, special cotton blankets are prearranged under he wheel and lifted up to place the paper and plate underneath.

There is stenciling, which you may know, linoleum plates and copper plates, a form of lithograph, or carving into the plate, silk screen, where many t-shirts have been made, and collograph, a form of adding texture to a plate and inking the texture to imprint the paper. There are many, many types and avenues for Printmaking, many books have been printed in this fashion before we taught computers how to help and do some of this type of printing for us.

Thomas Bewick: The Tawny Owl

The Tawny Owl, wood engraving by Thomas Bewick, from his History of British Birds, 1797–1804.

Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd.; Url; https://www.britannica.com/art/printmaking#/media/1/477079/71955; Access Date: March 17, 2021; Website Name Encyclopedia Britannica

Publisher Encyclopedia Britannica; printmaking | Definition, History, Techniques, Artists, & Facts | Britannica

Mary Cassatt: Woman Bathing

Woman Bathing, colour aquatint with drypoint by Mary Cassatt, 1890–91; in the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Art Institute of Chicago; Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection; reference no. 1932.1281 (CC0); Url: https://www.britannica.com/art/printmaking#/media/1/477079/238696;

Access DateMarch 17, 2021; Website Name Encyclopædia Britannica