Modern Printmaking

A fully illustrated instructional printmaking book presenting step-by-step examples alongside representative works from thirty top contemporary printmaking artists. 

Printmaking is flourishing in the modern era, appealing to both traditional artists as well as those interested in graphic design and digital techniques. This all-in-one guide is both technical and inspirational, examining the history and contemporary processes of relief, intaglio, lithography, serigraphy, mixed media, digital transfers, and post-digital graphics. Featuring step-by-step examples alongside representative works and profiles of top printmaking artists, this colorful resource
provides a truly fresh look at printmaking today, in all its forms.Foreword by Ira Goldberg  vi

Acknowledgments  viii

Introduction  1

Some Basic Terms and Definitions  2

About This Book  7

Part I: Relief Printmaking
1  |  Relief Printmaking Background and Basics  11
A Brief History  11
Western- versus Japanese-Style
Relief Printing  18

2  |  Woodblock Printing  29
Equipment and Materials for
Woodcuts  29
Reduction-Method Woodblock
Printing  31
Western-Style Multiblock Woodcuts  43
Japanese-Style Multiblock Woodcuts
(Ukiyo-e)  44

3  |  Linoleum Block Printing  49
Equipment and Materials for Linocuts  49
Single-Color (Black and White)
Linocuts  50
Color Reduction Linocuts  53
Part II: Intaglio Printmaking

4  |  Intaglio Printmaking Background
and Basics  61
A Brief History  65
Equipment and Materials  72
Preparing the Plate  77

5  |  Non-Acid Intaglio Techniques  81
Drypoint  82
Engraving  83
Mezzotint  87

6  |  Acid Intaglio Techniques  97
Hard Ground Etching  97
Soft Ground Etching  103
Aquatint  109
Acid-Resist Open Bite Etching  125
Embossing  129
Sugar Lift  132

7  |  Collography  137

8  |  Photo-Etching and Photogravure  143
Polymer Photo-Etching  143
Toner Transfer Photo-Etching  151
Polymer Photogravure  155

9  |  Printing Intaglio  159
Printing in Monochrome  159
Printing in Multiple Colors à la Poupée  162
Printing in Multiple Colors—Color
Separation Method  163
Roll-up Viscosity Printing  163
Part III: Lithography
And Serigraphy

10  |  Lithography  169
A Brief History  171
Equipment and Materials  177
Stone Lithography  181
Hand-Drawn Lithography on
Aluminum  200
Photolithography  206
Pronto Polyester Lithography  214
Paper Lithography  221

11  |  Serigraphy  225
A Brief History  226
Equipment and Materials  228

Basic Screen Printing Techniques  230

Part IV: Chine-Collé, Mixed Media, and New Printmaking Techniques

12  |  Chine-Collé  239

13  |  Mixed Media  251

Richard Pitts  252

Jase Clark  256

Slavko Djuric  260

Shelley Thorstensen  264

Janet Millstein  268

Marcin Wlodarczyk  272

14  |  Digital Transfers  276

15  |  Post-Digital Graphics  285

Resources  296
For Further Reading  299
About the Author  301
Index  302“Sylvie Covey’s excellent book on printmaking is not only beautiful and informative but also covers a wide range of printmaking processes, both conventional and digital, with detailed information on tools, inks, papers, and presses. Well designed and visually accessible, this book is a must-have for artists, laypeople, and anyone wanting to know more about the methodology and practice of printmaking.”
—SUSAN CRILE, artist and professor at Hunter CollegeSYLVIE COVEY was born in France and studied graphic arts at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. She has taught digital and photo techniques in printmaking at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York since 2001 and has been an instructor at the Art Students League of New York since 1995. Her work has been exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, and North and South America and has been acquired by major museums and institutions. She lives in New York City.Foreword

To be an instructor at the Art Students League of New York is to hold a position of distinction among artists. The League’s faculty is an elite group of professional artists who are all recognized in their fields. Each instructor has a unique voice that puts a signature to his or her work and ultimately identifies its creator. The mastery and knowledge they convey to their students come from a lifetime of dedication and exploration of their chosen mediums. It is that dedication, as well as their ability to teach the techniques and means to understand the language of art, that inspires the thousands of students who study at the League each year and the literally hundreds of thousands who have trained here for nearly a century and a half.

Sylvie Covey exemplifies those qualities of professionalism, mastery, and dedication. An émigrée from Paris, where she studied at the prestigious École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Ms. Covey came to the League to continue her studies, taking classes with master printmakers Michael Ponce de Leon and Seong Moy. She went on to study at Hunter College in New York, receiving an MFA in printmaking, drawing, and works on paper. Through this intensive study Ms. Covey became a master printmaker, not only mastering the traditional techniques of intaglio, lithography, and relief printmaking but also using that knowledge to establish her own voice within the contemporary oeuvre of digital printmaking and photo-etching as well as photolithography.

Ms. Covey has proved to be as notable an instructor as she is an artist. Every year as part of the League’s annual student concourse, her class exhibitions reveal the highly polished professionalism of her students, who have availed themselves of their instructor’s rich and in-depth knowledge of the entire medium. Students at the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Art Center
of Northern New Jersey continue to benefit from Ms. Covey’s expertise.

As Executive Director of the Art Students League, I am very proud to call Sylvie Covey a League instructor. Along with the other members of the League’s faculty, she is helping to pave the way for today’s generation of artists to explore the potential of a traditional medium in ways that will allow them to speak eloquently and poetically in the future. Ms. Covey herself is a luminous example of that potential realized.