Printmaking Books & Reference Materials

Etching, Engraving and Other Intaglio Printmaking Techniques by Ruth Leaf

Thorough, comprehensive handbook covers materials and equipment, tools, printing papers, presses and other essentials. Detailed instructions for etching (hard ground, soft ground, aquatint, sugar lift, etc.), engraving, drypoint, collagraphs, tuilegraphs and the Blake transfer method. Profusely illustrated; also includes bibliography and updated list of suppliers. “…excellent, step-by-step comprehensive outline…superbly organized…”—AB Bookman’s Weekly.

The Complete Printmaker by Ross and Romano

The revised and expanded edition of “The Complete Printmaker” covers various aspects of fine printmaking and takes the reader step by step through the history and techniques of over forty-five print-making methods – from the traditional etching, engraving, lithography, and relief print processes to today’s computer prints, Mylar lithography, copier prints, water-based screen printing, helio-reliefs, and monotypes. The book also includes a survey of issues and contemporary concerns in the printmakers world.

The Contemporary Printmaker: Intaglio-Type & Acrylic Resist Etching

Written by the Head of Printmaking and Research at the Rochester Institute of Technology School of Art, Keith Howard’s latest title “The Contemporary Printmaker: Intaglio-Type & Acrylic Resist Etch” represents the latest research into non-toxic, or contemporary printmaking. The book contains 256 pages, including over 500 full-color illustrations—there is a Quick Look section to most chapters with a Troubleshooting guide at the end of each chapter.

Monotype: Mediums and Methods for Painterly Printmaking by Ayres

The first printmakers were cave people who painted their hands and slapped them against cave walls. Today, printmakers like Ayres still use methods nearly as simple. Others, like printmaker and painter Welden, have created completely new processes, like his solarplate method. Monotypes, the subject of Ayres’s book, are created by applying oil- or water-based paint to a flat plate. By pressing a dampened sheet of paper to the plate, a single print is made. The earliest such prints go back to Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, around 1640. Later, Degas and Gauguin experimented with the method. Today, there is a virtual explosion of new ways to create monotypes. Ayres explores the work of a variety of such artists, who demonstrate imaging techniques, masks, stencils, collage, and mixed-media prints. The results vary from traditional images to eccentric, colorful fantasies. In 1972, Welden discovered that polymer printers’ plates could be used in printmaking by exposing them to the sun. Draw on a transparency, place it over the plate, expose it to the sun, and the plate is, in effect, etched for printing. The method is now widely used, and Welden and Muir have produced the first book on this extremely versatile art. Both books are highly recommended.

Tamarind Techniques for Fine Art Lithography

Eagerly awaited by artists and fine art printers everywhere, this comprehensive, all-new book created by the director and staff of the Tamarind Institute of Lithography at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, covers all facets of fine art lithography, from setting up a workshop of any size to pulling a successful edition. It offers complete, illustrated step-by-step instructions for all techniques in use today; up-to-date health and safety information; and full-color plates of over forty years’ worth of lithographs created at Tamarind. Unrivaled in scope, this extraordinary manual will be an invaluable reference for students of the medium—and a treasured resource in lithography workshops around the world— for years to come.

Printmaking in the Sun DVD by Dan Welden

Printmaking in the Sun introduces a revolutionary new printmaking technique known as the solarplate method, first developed in 1972 by one of the book’s authors, Dan Welden. He had begun experimenting with light-sensitive polymer plates in place of traditional metal plates, which frees the artist from exposure to poisonous lead fumes. To make a solarplate print, one creates a piece of artwork on film, overlays it on a solarplate, and exposes the film and plate together in the sun. The drawing is transferred to the plate, which is then developed in ordinary tap water. The resulting image appears in the same orientation as the original drawing. This book exhaustively covers the techniques of solarplate printing, describing how to use the proper equipment and materials, prepare relief and intaglio images, make and print relief and intaglio plates, expose your work to the sun, use digital images and photogravure, and work with color printing. The book is generously illustrated with color and black-and-white solarplate images by accomplished artists, as well as clear step-by-step illustrations depicting how to prepare and process your images and plates.