Katie Gilmartin, Printmaker

What Makes a Print a Print?

A print is created when ink is applied to one surface and then transferred, by pressure, to another surface. The surface to which the ink is first applied, known as the ãplate,ä can be composed of a variety of materials, including wood, metal, linoleum, and acrylic. The pressure used to transfer the image may be provided directly by hand or, as with all of my prints, by a hand-turned press. Printmaking was originally developed to produce multiple copies of text or images. However, the process of printmaking creates distinctive visual qualities quite different from those of an image directly drawn or painted. The way ink is absorbed by paper in a monotype, for example, is quite different from the way paint applied with a brush lies on paper. And a process like linocut produces an image with characteristic marks -- the result of gouges made in the plate -- that create unique movement and vitality.

Linocut

A linocut is a print created from a smooth linoleum plate. Linoleum is composed of cork and linseed oil (which is itself compressed from flaxseed). Linoleum used by artists is backed with burlap and considerably softer than the linoleum used for kitchen floors. The image is carved directly into the plate, and ink rolled on the surface of the plate is then transferred to paper to create the print. Matisse and Picasso made extensive use of this medium.

Monotype

A monotype is, as its name implies, a one-of-a-kind image. Ink is applied in any of a multitude of ways to a smooth surface and then transferred to paper. Unlike most printmaking processes, a monotype image is not reproducible: each print is a unique impression. Monotypes have been called the most painterly of prints, because if ink is applied to the plate with a brush, the resulting print may display brushmarks quite similar to those of a painting.

Monoprint

The terms monotype and monoprint are frequently used interchangeably. There is, however, a technical difference between the two: while a monotype is a unique impression produced from a plate without any kind of reproducible image, a monoprint is a unique impression pulled from a plate that bears an incised, and therefore reproducible, image. My monoprints are, in a sense, a fusion of linocut and monotype: I use a carved plate, but apply ink in a one-of-a kind way.

Viscosity

Viscosity is simply the stickiness of a fluid: inks that have differing amounts of oil mixed in with them have different viscosities. When mixed properly, these inks will then resist each other, much like oil and vinegar. This allows printmakers to roll one ink over another, with minimal intermixing. The process is experimental and finicky, particularly when three or more colors are involved, but it produces distinctive, exciting results.

Ghost

Generally printmakers ink a plate and pull one print from it. However, after being printed once a plate still has some residual ink left on it. If a second print is pulled using only this residual ink, the resulting image has a wonderfully smokey, ghostly quality, and is therefore called a ghost.

Numbering

Because printmaking can produce multiple copies of the same image, a method of numbering has been devised to identify each print individually. The number is usually written as a fraction, with the number on the bottom being the total number of prints to be pulled from that plate (also called the edition), and the number on top the number of that particular print. For example, 5/50 would be the fifth print out of a total edition of fifty. Because monotypes and monoprints are unique images, they are either left unnumbered or numbered 1/1 - that is, one out of a total edition of one.

What's this about “Pulling” a Print?

The ink that transfers from plate to paper in the printmaking process tends to make the paper stick to the plate. Removing the paper often requires a bit of pulling - so printmakers tend to talk about “pulling” a print, rather than “making” a print. In any case, as I always warn my new students, printmaking can be a wonderfully addictive creative process: I’ve heard of a printmaker who didn’t have access to a press, but who had a driveway, a car, and two pieces of plywood...