Classroom Activity

Printmaking Basics

Walter Gramatté, The Burial (Begrabnis), 1916, linocut in black on thin japan paper, Ruth and Jacob Kainen Collection, 1989.80.4

Grade Level

Subject

Language

Clare Romano, Associated American Artists, Grand Canyon, 1977, color collagraph on wove paper, Gift of Bob Stana and Tom Judy, 2016.148.44

Collagraph: The base of a collagraph print is made from cardstock, wood, or metal. String and other materials are glued or attached in layers to the base to form an image. The artist inks the base and presses paper on top to create the print.

Walter Gramatté, The Burial (Begrabnis), 1916, linocut in black on thin japan paper, Ruth and Jacob Kainen Collection, 1989.80.4

Linocut: To make a linocut, the artist carves an image into a block of linoleum with a sharp knife or chisel, inks the block with a roller (called a brayer), and then presses paper against the block by hand or with a printing press. Uncarved areas hold the ink; the areas where linoleum was removed do not appear in the final print.

Romare Bearden, Robert Blackburn, Limited Editions Club, New York, Untitled from The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden, 1983, color lithograph on Rives paper, Gift of Jane and Raphael Bernstein, 2002.115.1.2

Lithograph: To make a lithograph, the artist uses a greasy drawing tool on a prepared flat stone or metal plate. An acidic solution with gum arabic fixes the drawing to the surface and allows it to accept ink. Blank areas repel the ink. The stone is also moistened with water. Ink sticks to the greasy areas but not to the damp areas of the moistened stone. The printmaker places a damp sheet of paper on the inked image and runs it through a lithographic press, which applies enough pressure to transfer the image to the paper.

Luigi Conconi, Solitudine [Solitude], 1892, etching with monotype wiping, printed in black on wove paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2017.76.1

Monoprint: A monoprint is a unique impression that can be made only one time (rather than making multiple copies of the same image).

Lou Stovall, The Workshop, Inc., Sea to Shining Sea, 2008, color screenprint on wove paper, Gift of Lou and Di Stovall, 2009.8.1

Screenprint: Also known as a serigraph or a silkscreen, a screenprint is created with stencils. Silk or synthetic fabric is stretched tightly over a frame to form a screen. Stencils attached to the screen not only create an image or shape, but they also prevent ink or paint from passing through blocked-off areas of the screen. Ink or paint is forced through the screen with a squeegee, one color at a time. Any ink or paint that passes through the screen leaves color on the paper.

Clare Romano, Calcio (Soccer), 1958, woodcut, Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.4135

Woodcut: In the relief printmaking technique of woodcut, the artist carves a design or image into a block of wood with a knife or another sharp tool. The untouched areas are later coated with ink and pressed to paper; the areas where wood was removed do not appear in the final print. This technique, considered the oldest form of printmaking, dates to the seventh century in China.

You may also like

The spruce-green silhouette of a broad-shouldered man standing among palm fronds looks up at a faint red star against a field of green circles radiating out from the horizon in this abstracted vertical painting. The scene is made with mostly flat areas of color to create silhouettes in shades of slate and indigo blue, lemon-lime and pea green, plum purple, and brick red. To our right of center, the man faces our left in profile. His eye is a slit and he has tight curly hair. The position of his feet, standing on a coffin-shaped, brick-red box, indicate his back is to us. He stands with legs apart and his arms by his sides. Terracotta-orange shackles around his wrists are linked with a black chain. A woman to our left, perhaps kneeling, holds her similarly shackled hands up overhead. A line of shackled people with their heads bowed move away from this pair, toward wavy lines indicating water in the distance. The water is pine green near the shore and lightens, in distinct bands, to asparagus green on the horizon. On our left, two, tall pea-green ships sail close to each other at the horizon, both titled at an angle to our right. Concentric circles radiate out from the horizon next to the ships to span the entire painting, subtly altering the color of the silhouettes it encounters. To our left, a buttercup-yellow beam shines from the red star in the sky across the canvas, overlapping the man’s face. Spruce-blue palm trees grow to our right while plum-purple palm fronds and leaves in smoke gray and blood red frame the painting along the left corners and edge. The artist signed the painting in the lower right, in black, “AARON DOUGLAS.”

Educational Resource:  Storytelling: Aaron Douglas

We look slightly down onto a crush of pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages, wagons, and streetcars enclosed by a row of densely spaced buildings and skyscrapers opposite us in this horizontal painting. The street in front of us is alive with action but the overall color palette is subdued with burgundy red, grays, and black, punctuated by bright spots of harvest yellow, shamrock green, apple red, and white. Most of the people wear long dark coats and black hats but a few in particular draw the eye. For instance, in a patch of sunlight in the lower right corner, three women wearing light blue, scarlet-red, or emerald-green dresses stand out from the crowd. The sunlight also highlights a white spot on the ground, probably snow, amid the crowd to our right. Beyond the band of people in the street close to us, more people fill in the space around carriages, wagons, and trolleys, and a large horse-drawn cart piled with large yellow blocks, perhaps hay, at the center of the composition. A little in the distance to our left, a few bare trees stand around a patch of white ground. Beyond that, in the top half of the painting, city buildings are blocked in with rectangles of muted red, gray, and tan. Shorter buildings, about six to ten stories high, cluster in front of the taller buildings that reach off the top edge of the painting. The band of skyscrapers is broken only by a gray patch of sky visible in a gap between the buildings to our right of center, along the top of the canvas. White smoke rises from a few chimneys and billboards and advertisements are painted onto the fronts of some of the buildings. The paint is loosely applied, so many of the people and objects are created with only a few swipes of the brush, which makes many of the details indistinct. The artist signed the work with pine-green paint near the lower left corner: “Geo Bellows.”

Educational Resource:  Exploring Identity through Modern Art

How do artists draw on memories and experiences to create art that reflects their identities? How does an artist’s connection to place spark inspiration? Through guided looking, sketching, and writing activities, students will consider how artists explore identity through their art.

Educational Resource:  Breaking the Rules

What is modern about modern art? Students investigate how artists "break the rules" when they depart from realistic representation, use innovative techniques, and engage the viewer as a partner in creating meaning-making.