What is an 'original' print?

[Sandra Davies]

I know there is a lot of ignorance about printmaking because I was as ignorant as most until the autumn of 1999 when I was first initiated into what is, on the surface (pun intended) a very simple process by means of which an image can be created on a sheet of paper.   And then, if desired, re-created from several to hundreds more times, which is where confusion begins, because the immediate assumption is  that whereas one, unique, image has value, ‘multiples’ do not.

The term ‘limited edition’ has become further debased, for purely commercial reasons, by those sellers who attempt to imply that what are reproductions of artworks – photocopies of paintings – have an equal merit, when the truth is that an ‘original’ print is made only when the artist conceives and creates an image on a printing plate and subsequently uses that plate to transfer that image onto paper.

Such hand-made prints can be produced in small limited editions but many artists (myself included) are not interested in producing identical prints and use the process to create several, often vastly different versions of the same image. 

There are numerous ways to make a plate from which to print an image, all of which provide a language of marks, a richness of colour and depth and other unique characteristics which can’t be achieved in any other way.   In my next post I’ll describe the two methods I use:  etching and collagraph.

[Angela]

Glad to learn more of this.  Will tune in to the next post.

[Sandra Davies]

@ Toby - it depends, as always, on the intention of the artist.   A mezzotint is hugely labour-intensive, and skilled, so a long print run makes sense.   The plate will be inked and wiped for each print before going through the press and more often than not a skilled master-printer does this, with the expectation that each print will be as near as possible identical.   However, with each pass through the press, even a steel plate will wear down a tiny fraction, so the eigth run through will likely be crisper, less worn, than the 200th.

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

My understanding that every print in a series is slightly different even if nothing on the plate has changed.  They are all originals but the number in the series might mean something.  I have a mesotint that is 8/200 and I was told that that is more valuable than 200/200 but I have no idea why.

[Sandra Davies]

@ Paul - you've hit the nail on the head - the joy of the serendipitious accident.  

Screen-printing (and the idea of doing a chair is not something I'd thought of!) was another of those processes which could have given a life-time's pleasure, but in the end I restricted myself to things I could do at home with an etching press.   These days it sits and accuses me of neglect.

[Paul de Denus]

I think your prints are fantastic- half the fun is the process, much like writing, you're never quite sure what you'll get until that last stroke. I have a background in screenprinting which has many applications and approaches. The picture attached is of a kid's chair I silkscreened- all parts first in a light halftone, then handpainted with acrylics with a wash on of color. Each is different in some way. http://sixsentences.ning.com/photo/fox-chair-closeup?context=latest

[bolton carley]

i think you would be great at writing a blog about this type of thing for beginners in your field.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

Thanks for the link, Sandra. I'll take a look. One of the printers who did my notelets gave me the plates. I got rid of them years ago as the aluminium began to go funny(I'm sure there is a more technical term for that!)

[Sandra Davies]

@ Joey, Thomas - thank you - I just woke up this morning wanting to write this - glad to know it is of interest.

[Sandra Davies]

@ Diana - I just Googled photo-litho - http://www.alternativephotography.com/wp/processes/photolithography... but it's a process I've no experience of - I only ever did stone litho - a fascinating,  almost black magic, process but one which I knew I'd not be able to continue at home.  

So many of the processes using/requiring photographic type techniques (which are another method for getting an image onto a plate prior to carrying out some sort of etching process), required too much in the way of mathematical calculations for me to hold in my head, although the results were often very exciting.  (My Final degree show consisted of a dozen prints made this way, using imagery created on Photoshop from old documents)

[Diana E. Backhouse]

Interesting, Sandra. The drawings that I have used for my Tour of Yorkshire were reproduced using photo litho. I don't know whether that is used any more. Perhaps you can tell me.