Glossary
Printmaking and its processes have a range of particular technical terms, sometimes in complex combinations. In order to help you easily understand the vocabulary of printmaking and the interactions between the different techniques, Galerie Arenthon offers this glossary of the main notions related to printmaking.
Event
Artist's proof
Test test
Engraving
Interpretive lithography
Offset lithography
Biting
Matrix
Numbering
Plate
Press
Lithographic stone
On Rives, on Arches, etc.
Intaglio
Savings size
Direct size
Indirect size
Print run
One of the prints made by the artist at the end of the engraving process.
Unnumbered prints for the artist himself.
First print made to get an idea of the final print.
All work that results from an etching process.
Artistic method of cutting a surface to make a printing support.
Lithography of a work with the artist's permission.
Industrial lithographic printing technique.
Acid in which the plate is immersed to be hollowed out by means of a chemical reaction.
Plate that serves as a support for the artist's drawing.
Number of the event in relation to the total number of events in the form XX / XX.
Material which serves as an engraving support. The plate can be made of zinc, wood, copper...
Apparatus for printing the pattern of the inked plate on paper
Limestone on which the pattern is drawn in a lithograph.
Refers to the type of paper on which the print is printed.
Intaglio etching process in which the ink is deposited in the grooves previously dug in the plate.
Bump etching method in which ink is deposited on the surface of the plate
Engraving technique where the plate is incised by the engraver's hand, using a tool such as a chisel.
Engraving technique in which the plate is incised by the action of an acid, the mordant, in which it has been bathed.
Close to the term proof, refers to the result of an engraving print.