What is image transfer?

Image transfer is a technique for transferring printed ink from magazines or newspapers to a piece of artwork. White acrylic paint is used to stick the right side of the image to the paper. In the example on the right the whole paper has been covered. When the paint is dry you soak the top surface of the work and rub or peel back the magazine papers leaving the ink deposited on the surface.

What is paper batik?

Paper batik uses many of the techniques for batik on cotton or silk, but is worked on long fibred mulberry or manilla tissue. This is pinned to a frame so that successive layers of wax and dye may be added using traditional batik methods. The piece may be screwed up (to crack the wax) and dip dyed at the end to achieve the look of a material batik. It must then be mounted on white paper before use as a picture, card or bookbinding.

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What is an artist's print?

The availability of commercial, so-called, "limited edition" prints from various sources has introduced some confusion over the definition of an artists' print.

I craft my own woodcuts and etchings by hand and I ink them and print them myself on hand operated machinery, or by burnishing. My largest edition size is 50 and I now seldom produce editions of more than 25.

The number in the bottom left hand corner of a print (see above) indicates its number in the edition (first or top number) and the edition size (second or bottom number). So 14/30 would be the fourteenth print in an edition of thirty. Some of my prints are marked A/P. This stands for artists proof and in my case refers to early printings of the plate when I am still experimenting with colours and wiping, prior to editioning. Some artists use this term to describe a number of extra prints taken at the end of the edition. Either way they represent a small percentage only of the edition size and are not substandard in any way - indeed some collectors prefer them.

A genuine artist's print may be described as follows, "A mechanically reproduced image which has not previously existed independently of the printing process and in whose production the artist has directly participated" (Alexander Adams, Printmaking Today Vol 13, Number 2, Summer 2004).