Vocabulary List

Privacy- the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.

Public- in public, not in private; in a situation open to public view or access;publicly

General Vocabulary
Artist Proof- One of a small group of prints set aside from the edition for the artists use.

Brayer- A small, hand-held rubber roller used to spread printing ink evenly on a surface before
printing.

Edition- A set of identical prints, that are numbered and signed. This set of prints have been
pulled by or under the supervision of the artist and are authorized for distribution.

Impression Number- The number of a print in an edition. The first three prints in an edition 10
would be 1/10, 2/10, 3/10 etc.

Ink- Coloring material composed of pigment (color), a binder, and a vehicle. Ink is usually
thicker than most paints, and has a slower drying rate.

Matrix- A surface, a woodblock, a metal plate, a lithographic stone or a mesh screen for example,
on which the image to be printed is prepared. Numbering. The numbering of individual
impressions of prints can be found as early as the late nineteenth century.

Print- The actual picture the artist makes from a printmaking process.

Printmaking- Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper.

Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of
originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting.

Printing Press- A device used by a fine art printmaker to produce prints one copy at a time. It
applies pressure between a sheet of paper and an inked printing plate. Presses for intaglio
printing apply considerable pressure as they force the paper and plate between a roller and a flat
bed, thus squeezing the paper into the inked grooves of the plate.

Registration- Adjustment of separate plates, blocks, screens or paper in color printing to ensure
correct alignment of the colors.

Types of Printmaking
Woodcut Print- The oldest printmaking technique, woodcut involves carving an image into a
wooden surface, which is then inked and printedleaving the carved-out image in negative, as
well as occasional traces of the woods grain.

Linocut- A more modern analog to woodcut, linocuts are made using linoleum; the softness of
the material allows for cleaner, freer, and more fluid lines.

Etching- To create an etching, artists incise (draw) a composition onto a wax-coated metal
plate, then soak the entire plate in acid. The acid corrodes the exposed lines and leaves the wax
intact, so that when the plate is inked and pressed, the paper absorbs the image in reverse.
Rembrandt is one of the original masters of this technique.

Engraving- A less forgiving version of etching (mastered by Drer), in this process artists incise
their image directly onto a metal plate, which is then inked and printed.

Monotype- Unlike most other printmaking techniques, this process produces unique editions.
Artists draw, paint, or otherwise manipulate ink or paint to create a composition on a smooth
surface, which is then produced in reverse when applied to a ground support.

Lithography- Generally seen as the most difficult printmaking method, lithography involves
drawing directly on flat surface (usually stone) with an oil-based implement, then coating it with
a water-based liquid. When oil-based ink is applied its repelled by the water, inking in just the
image and allowing it to be transferred onto a paper ground.

Screen Print- One of the most ubiquitous printmaking techniques today, screen printing starts
with an ink-blocking stencil applied to a screen. When ink is wiped across the screen, it

selectively passes through, transferring the image to the ground. Look no further than Andy
Warhol for iconic examples of the medium.

Digital print- Digital prints are created with a computer and usually made with an ink-jet printer,
whose pinpointed mists of highly saturated ink product uniformly toned images. The artists
intent to produce a unique or limited-edition artwork is key here, as this printing process is also
used to make common reproductions.

Transfer- Transfer is a catch-all term for processes of transmitting images from one surface to
another, whether by rubbing, tracing, pressing, or any other manual technique. Outside of the
fine art context, examples of the technique include gravestone rubbings and carbon copies.

Stamping- To impress with a particular mark or device, as to indicate genuineness,approval, or

ownership. To mark or impress with a design, word, mark, etc.

Notable Artists
Albrecht Durer- 14711528, German painter and engraver,regarded as the greatest artist of the
German Renaissance and noted particularly as a draughtsman and for his copper engravings and
woodcuts

Rembrandt- 160669, Dutch painter, noted for his handling of shade and light, esp in his
portraits

Henri Matisse- 18691954, French painter and sculptor; leader of Fauvism

Hiroshi Yoshida- 1876-1950, was a 20th-century Japanese painter and woodblock printmaker. He
is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the shin-hanga style, and is noted especially for his
excellent landscape prints.

Hannah Tompkins-1920-1995, an American artist primarily known for her large body of artwork
based on the writings of William Shakespeare.

Andy Warhol- 192687, US artist and filmmaker; one of the foremost exponents of pop art

How to sign your prints

The Dos
DO sign using a sharp pencil
DO only sign the fine art print if you are happy with the quality of it - the artist's signature is the
mark of "approval" and also attests to its authenticity
DO sign a limited edition print near the bottom edge of the print - on the bottom right hand side
DO mark the edition number and the edition size at the same time - on the bottom left hand side (eg
#4 /25 indicates this is the fourth print of a limited edition of 25 and that no more prints will be
made)
DO add a title if appropriate - in between the signature and the edition number
DO sign any artwork which is to be reproduced as a giclee within the image to be reproduced (ie it's
best to avoid being accused of trying to imitate limited edition prints. There's absolutely nothing
wrong with giclee prints but they're not the same as fine art prints which are hand-pulled)
DO use a monogram if you want to be traditional. The practice of signing prints with names is
relatively recent.

The Donts
DO NOT sign using a pen. Convention dictates this is inappropriate and oddly it might make it more
vulnerable to fraud as signatures can be printed - but pencil can't!
DO NOT sign if you are unhappy with the print - you should deface or destroy it to stop it being sold
if you want to maintain the status of your work
DO NOT sign prints which are not hand-pulled and/or are unlimited editions of a reproduction in the
same way as a limited edition fine art print. The convention to maintain the distinction between these
two different sorts of prints is that
limited edition fine art prints are signed and
unlimited reproduction prints are NOT signed outside the image in a way which mimics the limited
edition print
DO NOT sign blank sheets of paper
Signing blank pieces of paper occurs when the economic value of the print lies in the signature.
Certain artists (eg Dali) are well known for having done this in the past and this has now undermined
the secondary market for their prints.
Bookmaking Handout

How to Make a Book - Materials

For this project, you will need:

blank paper (30-100 sheets, depending how thick you want your book)
card-board - 2 sheets, for front and back covers
pretty paper* - 2 types, for inside and outside of covers
ribbon - a few feet long, 6 mm () wide
hole-punch (or power drill: optional)
glue stick
scissors
ruler
bull clips
***See all Images below***

Step 1
Lay out your blank paper. Here Im using 30 sheets of 6" by 8" high-quality writing paper. You
can use as many or as few sheets as you like. I think 30 sheets is a good size for a photo album.
For a journal you probably want 50 or more.

Step 2
Cut out two sheets of cardboard exactly the same size as your blank paper, e.g. 6" by 8" in my
case. Take one of the cardboard pieces and draw two vertical lines on it. The first line should be
1" (2.5cm) from the left edge, and the second line should be just under 1 (exactly 3.5cm)
from the left edge.
Repeat for the other piece of cardboard.

Step 3
Using scissors or a craft knife, cut along the the lines you drew in the previous step. You
basically end up removing a thin (just under , or exactly 1 cm) strip from each piece of
cardboard.
Step 4

Cut out two pieces of nice paper for the outside of the covers. Each piece should be 1 longer
and 1 wider than the blank paper. For instance, my blank paper is 6" by 8", so I cut my nice
paper to 7 by 9 size.

Step 5

Place one of your nice sheets of paper face-down, and draw a border in pencil all the way
around.

Step 6

Use your glue stick to glue the cardboard onto the nice paper like this, so that it lines up with the
border you drew in the previous step. Make sure that you cover the whole face of cardboard with
glue, not just the edges.

This will be the back cover. The gap in the cardboard will be the hinge that makes the book
easy to open.
If youre using thin paper (e.g. wrapping paper), its better to apply the glue to the paper than to
the cardboard, otherwise the paper can wrinkle up. Thin paper tends to swell from the moisture
in the glue. By applying the glue direct to the paper, you give the paper a chance to swell before
its in contact with the cardboard.

Step 7

Do the same thing for the front cover. Make sure that you glue the paper on the right way up! My
paper has a little bird on it, so I had to make sure it was the right way up.

Step 8

Fold the corners over as far as theyll go, and glue them in place.

Step 9

Do the same for the other cover.

Step 10

Fold the edges in, and glue them in place too.

Step 11

Cut out two sheets of paper for the inside of the covers. Im using this red paper with a fan
pattern. The pieces should be should be smaller than the blank paper. My blank paper is 6" by
8", so I cut out the paper for the inside-covers to be 5 by 7 .
Then, glue the paper onto the inside of the covers. (Ignore the bull-clips, theyre actually for the
next step.)

Step 12

Time to punch the holes, which is probably the trickiest bit of how to make a book, but not too
difficult to do.
If you are lucky enough to have access to a heavy duty hole punch, youll have no trouble
punching through your covers and pages of the album. This is the most straight-forward method
of making your holes, and will only take you a few minutes as you can do many pages at once.
If you dont have access to a heavy duty hole punch, try using a single-hole punch like one of
these below. It really depends on the thickness of the cardboard cover as to whether you can
punch through it or not, but it's worth a try. If you use a single punch, punch through the covers
and sheets one by one.
What if I dont have a heavy duty paper punch?
Dont worry! Another option is to use a drill. If you have a drill, then make a sandwich that
goes cover, blank paper, cover, but with the covers on inside out. When we drill in a moment it
usually makes rough edges at the top and bottom of the sandwich. By drilling with the covers on
inside out, the rough edges will be hidden when you flip the covers around the right way later.
Use bull-clips to hold the sandwich together, then rest it on an old phone book or something that
you dont mind drilling a hole in. Drill two holes. One of them should be 1 from the top of
the book, and the other should be 1 from the bottom of the book. They should both be about
in from the spine.
I used a drill bit. Smaller is OK too (e.g. 3/16").

Step 13

Now its time to do the actual binding, which is the really clever part of the Japanese way of how
to make a book.
Youll need a piece of ribbon thats 6 times as long as the book is tall. For instance, my book is
6" tall, so I need about 36" of ribbon.

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Potato stamp
Potato Stamp 101: How to Make Art with a Spud

I think we made potato stamps when I was a little girl. This activity consisted of
cutting a potato in half, dousing it in paint, and pressing down. Well, gone are those
days. I wanted to make a sophisticated, useful potato stamp.
The first thing I did was put an old business card against my cut potato as a
template. Then I cut around it using my Miracle Blade

So once you have your business-card cut, youll want to dig in with a hobby knife.
Im sure my hobby knife will extract rusty revenge on me since I used it to cut a
veggie, but oh well. You could probably use a small, sharp kitchen knife as well.
As you can see, before I started cutting, I inverted THANKS so I could visualize how
exactly I needed to carve the potato. You could also lay a stencil directly over the
potato and cut around that. I wouldnt attempt tracing with a Sharpie or pen; the
potato is too moist and will not absorb any ink.

In the end, I decided to freehand it. After all, the sort of juvenile, non-exact style is a
hallmark of the potato stamp.

So, remember I told you the potato stamp wont absorb any ink? This is firsthand
knowledge because frankly I tried pressing the potato against an ink pad. The
potato came off clean as ever. Im afraid this is a job for some cheap acrylic paint.
Either create your own pad by smearing paint on a flat surface then pressing the
potato against it, or do what I did and haphazardly brush paint onto the convex
part of your potato stamp.

Once youve brushed the paint on, choose your surface! I stamped directly onto
pages from an old Readers Digest compilation. I love the contrast of crisp Times
New Roman font with the thick THANKS of the potato stamp.

{Be sure and put even pressure on the potato

to get the most out of your paint. But dont over-do it.}

The possibilities, of course, are limitless as far as what you can do with your potato
stamp. Stamp a design directly onto DIY business cards, make some abstract (or
quotation) art for your home, or do as I did and create a greeting card.

The potato stamp took me a total of ten minutes to

throw together, and thats including the time required to compose pictures.
Granted, its not a long-lasting stamp (Ill get back to you on precisely what its
lifespan is), but its environmentally friendly and fun to make. I really like the look of
it contrasted with vintage paper and elegant cursive.

EZ cut stamps

Product Comparison: Easy Carve Printing

Blocks

Recently, I was at the Dick Blick store in my area and they had a make and take using hand
carved stamps. There was a little demo about how to carve and then they let you print using some
stamps they made. I was curious because I saw three different easy cut blocks. There was a pink,
a grey, and the standard cream block that I've used in the past. When I first started block printing,
there were only the linoleum or wood blocks available. You had to heat up the linoleum in order
to make it a little softer and safer for cutting. But it cooled quickly and the smell of the heated
linoleum was a little overwhelming. So when the EZ cut blocks came on the scene I began using
those. They weren't as hard to work with as the linoleum and I loved how I could cut the block to
any size. However, it has it's limitations. For instance, when you carve with it it gets all crumbly
and it's almost impossible to get much detail because of this tendency to crumble. It also
deteriorates with frequent handling. I've thought of trying to coat the backs of the blocks with a
stiffener after carving, or mounting them on a block, but I'm lazy and usually just stuff them into
a drawer once I've cut them and used them. Also, unlike the linoleum which was dangerous
because it was SO hard to carve, it's maybe too easy to carve for safety's sake.
So I grabbed one of each type of easy cut block available and went home to give them a try. The
grey was very rubbery and I wasn't a huge fan. It was down to the pink vs. the cream and here's
the comparisons I made....

1) To begin a stamp I'll frequently sketch out my design on paper with a pencil and then press the
paper on top of the block to transfer the design. I tried this technique with both blocks and didn't
really see much of a difference. So far so good!

2) Next, on to the carving. I used the same basic design on each block. The pink block required
more pressure when carving but I actually liked that. It was less likely to crumble and I was able
to cut a lot more detail. You can see in the pic that the cream seems much more crumbly and the
lines aren't nearly as good. When done carving the blocks I decided to use a scissors to cut away
the excess block around the image on each block. They each cut just fine with the scissors.

3) On to printing! I used the same dye ink pad for each and stamped them side by side. They both
seemed to print the same. The image on the right is much crisper but that's because of the carving
and not the application or transfer of ink. They both rinsed off fine, although the cream did retain
a bit of the ink color.

4) Durability testing came next. To do this I bent each stamp gently in half. Here's where I saw
another big difference. The cream block split and cracked immediately, the pink was just fine.
This would be especially important to me if I was carving an over sized image. In the past I've
had a real problem with those larger stamps cracking after just a few uses.
Foam board stamps
DIY Foam Stamps

Hi Friends! Today Im sharing a really fun way to personalize packaging. Im showing you how
to make your own DIY Foam Stamps. I recently made two different styles, a chevron print and a
striped version. These stamps are really easy to make and you probably already have enough
supplies at home to make them.
What You Need:
Craft Foam Sheets
(the kind kids make fun crafts out of, you can typically find it by the felt at Michaels)
Scissors
Ruler

 Marker or Pen
Paint or Stamp Pads
Foam Craft Paint Brush or Foam Craft Paint Dobber
Something pretty to stamp it on
Glue Gun
Foam Core or A Small Piece of Wood

I had a bunch of small 4 x 6 craft foam on hand from my kids stash of craft supplies. So thats
what I grabbed and it was perfect for my Brown Paper Kraft Bags that I wanted to stamp on. I
began by finding my center point and making a small dot with my marker. I then found the
center point on both sides of my original center line, and then once again I found the center mark
to those second set of dots (make sense?) It should look like my foam below when your done
marking it vertically.

I then found all my center points horizontally and drew those lines. It will look like this second
picture below where I started marking my chevron points. My chevron zig zags are about 1/2
wide.

With my ruler I just connect the lines diagonally.

It will look like this when you are done drawing all your diagonal lines.

I then cut it all out with my scissors. There is something about cutting craft foam to me that is
therapeutic, it just cuts so smooth. When your done cutting youll have a ton of chevron stripes
like this.

I then used what I had on hand (which was foam core board), you could use that or if you have
some nice scrap pieces of wood that you could make custom sized blocks that would be perfect
and make it washable. I however did not have that on hand. So mine arent washable, but thats
ok.

Now you just hot glue your chevron stripes on to your firm surface, be sure to space them evenly.
And your done with your stamp. For my striped stamp I just measured and cut my strips. Super
easy.

I wanted to create something I could use as packaging for my sons class treat for Valentines Day
so I chose a red & white acrylic paint to use when stamping on my bags.

I just used a round foam dobber paint brush and applied the paint to my foam stamp then
stamped my bags. Carefully lifted my stamps up and let my bags dry.
Sources:
http://www.thecraftedsparrow.com/2013/01/diy-foam-stamps.html
http://blog.birdfromawire.com/2011/06/product-comparison-easy-carve-printing.html
https://thepostmansknock.com/potato-stamp-101-how-to-make-art-with-a-spud/