Types of Printing
Artists choose from three types of fine quality printing:
Giclee: (Fr. "a spraying of ink"): Another term fine art prints. Giclee is a French word which describes the effects of the digital printing ink jets that create a color image on paper. Giclee has become one of the fastest growing new mediums of our time and is esteemed as the highest quality printmaking method.
Serigraphy presses ink through a silk screen resulting in a print that resembles a painting. Silk-screening enables the artist to vary colors and patterns while printing.
Lithography uses a substance to draw an image on limestone or a metal plate. Ink coats the design and repels non-greasy areas. Finally, paper is laid over the stone to transfer the linked image onto the page. The process is repeated for each color in the image.
Hand-Drawn Lithograph: A planographic printmaking technique based on the anitpathy of oil and water. The image is drawn with a grease crayon or painted with tusche on a stone or grained aluminum plate. The surface is then chemically treated and dampened so that it will accept ink only where the crayon or tusche has been used with the entire process being done tediously by hand.
Offset Lithograph: This form of lithography is identical to the hand-drawn in application, with the exception being the process is done photomechanically opposed to being done by hand.
Serigraph: A technique in which stencils are applied to fabric stretched across a frame. Paint or ink is forced with a squeegee through the unblocked portions of the screen onto paper or other surface beneath.
Hand-Pulled Silkscreen: A technique very similar to that used in developing a Serigraph, with the exception again coming through the use of one hands to perform the finer details of the process.
Acrylic (Acrylic Resin): A clear plastic used as a binder in paint and as a casting material in sculpture.