The main kinds of printmaking you can do at school, the words printmakers use, and some New Zealand printmakers to know.
A print is an image made by pressing an inked surface onto paper or cloth. The surface you ink is called the plate or block. The magic is that one block can make many copies, so printmaking was one of the first ways people shared pictures widely.
Three ways to print at school
Relief printing: you carve away the parts you don't want, then ink the raised surface. Stamps, foam prints, linocuts and woodcuts are all relief prints.
- Monoprint: you ink a smooth surface, draw or wipe into it, and print. You only get one, so every monoprint is unique.
- Rubbing: you place paper over a raised surface and rub with crayon, like a coin rubbing.Words printmakers use
Brayer: a rubber roller for spreading ink.
- Proof: a test print to check your block.
- Edition: a set of matching prints, numbered like 3/5 (the third of five).
- Registration: lining up paper or blocks in exactly the same place each time.
- Reversal: prints come out as a mirror image of the block.Printmakers from Aotearoa
E. Mervyn Taylor (1906–1964) was a Wellington engraver who carved detailed images into blocks of wood and also designed murals.
- Frank Weitzel, born in New Zealand, made bold modern linocuts around 1930, including one reproduced in a famous book about lino cutting.
- Marilynn Webb (Ngāpuhi, Te Roroa, 1937–2021) was best known for her prints and pastels of southern landscapes such as Lake Mahinerangi and Fiordland, and for work that spoke up for the land.
- Michel Tuffery, of Samoan, Tahitian and Cook Islands heritage, is known as a printmaker, painter and sculptor.
- Dagmar Dyck, of Tongan and German heritage, makes prints and paintings inspired by Tongan textile arts, and also teaches art in a primary school.Thinking in reverse
Printmaking trains your brain. You have to imagine the finished print while you work on the block backwards. Words must be carved as mirror writing. What you carve away becomes white; what you leave becomes colour. That kind of planning ahead is a skill artists, engineers and designers all use.
Sources and further reading
Written for Kōkiri Learn students in our own words. Check facts against the sources.