Printmaking: an art of discovery, experimentation and process

What does it take to be a printmaker?

By Susan Williams

“I recall once when I was young, I shouted a bunch of cuss words at my brother, which my mother heard,” said Jones. “She smacked me and left me with a red hand print. Printmaking does not have to be complicated.”

Indeed, a print is simply an indentation or mark on a surface left by the pressure of an object brought into contact with it. Given a few stencils or some rubber stamps and ink, any of us could make a print on a piece of paper. But printmaking as a fine art is a different animal.

“Printmaking is about discovery, about experimentation; art itself is about discovery and experimentation,” said Jones, a professional, practicing artist. “It’s also about process, and the art of making prints is a natural arena for artists to explore. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but if an artist’s aesthetic calls for a lot of layering of imagery, color and texture, then a more complicated process is necessary.

“Ultimately, it is the process that draws me to the medium—figuring out what I want in an image and then creating the circumstances and processes to achieve that goal. Printmaking is loaded with creative problems, and part of the passion it inspires is finding the best possible creative solution to satisfy that visual problem.”

Jones studied with Rudy Pozatti and Marvin Lowe at IU Bloomington as an undergraduate and took his first art history class with Diether Thimme, whose print collection is about to be exhibited at the IU Art Museum.

The printmaking process has fascinated artists as far back as 500 A.D. when the idea of stenciling developed in China and Japan, said Jones. Woodcuts were being used as stamps to make impressions in clay and wax as early as the second century. The earliest dated intaglio print on paper goes back to 1446 and was made by a German engraver known as the “Master of 1446.”

Four major ways of creating prints have been developed over the years, each involving a different method of bringing ink into contact with paper and each leaving behind a different effect. In intaglio, from the Italian word “to incise,” a design is etched or engraved into a metal plate. In lithography, the image on the plate is made with a greasy medium that attracts ink. A relief printing plate has raised images, and in screen printing, the printing surface is a mesh. One color of ink at a time is applied to the plate and then pressed onto the paper. A more detailed design requires making numerous plates. The entire process—creating the plates, applying ink and printing the image on paper—is all done by hand, and, consequently, few copies of a single design are made.

“Prints can be done in the simplest of ways, such as a wood cut or linoleum cut, or even with a potato, for that matter,” said Jones. “Or they can be fully orchestrated multimedia collaborations between an artist, who knows nothing about the processes of printmaking, and a master printer. I know of an artist who does large scale wood cuts, four feet by eight feet, and prints them by driving a steam roller over the paper-covered surface.”

And with that example, Jones explained that the traditional approach to printmaking has evolved considerably over the last few decades to include non-traditional approaches such as collage, video, and computer manipulated and generated images.

“Now images can be shot with digital cameras, loaded into the computer, manipulated through various programs and then printed out with archival inks on archival papers,” said Jones. “The result is not a ‘poster’ but an original print produced by way of printmaking’s newest tools.”

Clearly, similarities exist between painting and printmaking; both are forms of visual expression requiring skill to execute a creative vision and idea. But the differences stretch beyond potatoes and steamrollers. If printing as a fine art is a different animal, then so is the printmaker.

“There is an engaging quote from Jules Heller in, Printmaking Today,” said Jones. “It says, ‘The Printmaker is a most peculiar being. He delights in deferred gratification and in doing what does not come naturally. He takes pleasure in working backward or in opposites: the gesture that produces a line of force moving to the right prints to the left, and vice versa; a deeply engraved trench in a copper or zinc plate prints as a depression in the paper. Left is right. Right is left. Backward is forward. The Printmaker, peculiar as he is, must see at least two sides to every question.’

“This is so true, because an artist who works in the printmaking media usually needs to have a plan for the development of that print,” said Jones. “It’s like having a travel destination, looking at a map, and then beginning the trip at the final destination and working your way to the beginning of the trip, and then starting the work.

“We are, indeed, peculiar beings.”