printmaking

/ˈprɪntmeɪkɪŋ/

/ˈprɪntmeɪkɪŋ/

Printmaking is an art form that involves making designs or images by printing them with ink. In most cases, printmaking allows you to produce many copies of the same picture. Short on Picassos? Print some more!

In some forms of printmaking, you carve a design into a wooden block, coat the block with ink, and then press it onto paper or canvas. The resulting work of art is called a print. Another type of printmaking requires special screens that have designs burned into them, creating a kind of stencil. Ink is then pushed through this screen onto paper or fabric — this is called screenprinting or silkscreen.

Definitions of printmaking

1. noun

   artistic design and manufacture of prints as woodcuts or silkscreens
   types:

   engraving, etching

   making engraved or etched plates and printing designs from them

   serigraphy

   the act of making a print by the silkscreen method

   lithography

   the act of making a lithographic print

   steel engraving

   the act of engraving on a steel plate

   aquatint

   a method of etching that imitates the broad washes of a water color

   type of:

   art, artistic creation, artistic production

   the creation of beautiful or significant things