Linocut

1. Linocut Every linocut starts here - with a blank piece of linoleum and a pencil. With any type of original print, the artist creates a matrix - a printing element - which takes ink and transfers it to paper.

2. When I'm drawing on the block, you concentrate on the composition or placement of the elements in the design, and the proportions or skeletal structure of the objects in the image. Many of the ultimate decisions for how the image will appear are saved for when I'm cutting the block.

3. When you start to cut the block, using two gouges - a fine pointed V for sharp little lines, and a wider scoop to remove larger areas. Cutting a block is definitely a one-way street - once it's cut, you cant get it back You've got to be confident about what you want.

4. It's a unique way to make an image, in that your visual vocabulary is limited to strictly black and white - none of the greys that can be achieved with a pencil are possible. I mentioned above that many of the crucial decisions about the image are made while cutting the block - maybe here you can see why. Without a range of values, the direction of your cuts, their distance from one another, and the width of the lines becomes extremely important. I enjoy the challenge of working quite small, as it magnifies and celebrates the inherent difficulties of this form of image-making.

5. A screen is made of a piece of mesh stretched over a frame. A stencil is formed by blocking off parts of the screen in the negative image of the design to be printed; that is, the open spaces are where the ink will appear on the substrate. Screen printing

6. Before printing occurs, the frame and screen must undergo the pre-press process, in which an emulsion is 'scooped' across the mesh and the 'exposure unit' burns away the unnecessary emulsion leaving behind a clean area in the mesh with the identical shape as the desired image. The screen is placed atop a substrate. Ink is placed on top of the screen, and a floodbar is used to push the ink through the holes in the mesh. The operator begins with the fill bar at the rear of the screen and behind a reservoir of ink. The operator lifts the screen to prevent contact with the substrate and then using a slight amount of downward force pulls the fill bar to the front of the screen.

7. extile items printed with multicolored designs often use a wet on wet technique, or colors dried while on the press, while graphic items are allowed to dry between colors that are then printed with another screen and often in a different color after the product is re-aligned on the press.

8. the image carrier has the image cut or etched below the surface of the non-image area. On the gravure image carrier (usually a copper cylinder), all the images are screened, creating thousands of tiny cells. Gravure

9. During printing, the image carrier is immersed in fluid ink. As the image carrier rotates, ink fills the tiny cells and covers the surface of the cylinder. The surface of the cylinder is wiped with a doctor blade, leaving the non-image area clean while the ink remains in the recessed cells. This picture shows how the ink fills the cells when It rotates

10. Then the paper goes through a dryer because it must be completely dry before going through the next color unit and absorbing another coat of ink.

11. Lithography is a method of printing originally based on the principle that oil and water do not mix. Printing is from a stone called lithographic limestone or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by German author and actor Alois Senefelder as a cheap method of publishing theatrical works. lithography

12. lithography originally used an image drawn with oil, fat, wax on the surface of a smooth, level lithographic limestone plate. The stone was treated with a mixture of acid and gum arabic, etching the portions of the stone which were not protected by the grease-based image. When the stone was subsequently moistened, these etched areas retained water; an oil-based ink could then be applied and would be repelled by the water, sticking only to the original drawing.

13. Laser printing is a digital printing process that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics by passing a laser beam over a charged drum to define a differentially charged image. Laser printing

14. A laser beam projects an image of the page to be printed onto an electrically charged rotating drum coated with a chemical element called selenium or, more common in modern printers, organic photoconductors which deals with the electrical charges. A material allows charge to leak away from the areas exposed to light. Powdered ink (toner) particles are then electrostatically picked up by the drum's charged areas, which have not been exposed to light. The drum then prints the image onto paper by direct contact and heat, which fuses the ink to the paper.

15. photocopying When you put the letter on the glass plate and push the start button, a metal drum below the glass is given a negative electrical charge. A bright light shines on the original image, and a system of lenses projects that image onto the drum.

16. At this point positively charged particles of black powder are deposited on the drum with its negatively charged letters. Since opposite charges attract each other, the powder sticks to the where the letters are, but not to the rest of the drum, which has no charge. Then a negatively charged piece of paper is pressed against the positively charged powder which is transferred to the paper. Heat is momentarily applied to fuse the powder to the paper, and out comes a warm copy of your letter.