Living Prints Mezzotint On-line
Drawing, composing and laser-printing
There are as many ways to approach the drawing and composition
of a mezzotint as there are in any other printmaking technique.
There is no right way or wrong way.
Some artists have a philosophy about drawing related to printmaking.
If they regard printmaking as a reproduction process, they make
the transfer simply by photographing an original drawing and putting
it on the printing plate using a photographic process.
Other artists regard printmaking as a means to create original
art works that could not be created another way. They begin and
end the composition in the medium of the printing technique itself.
This may be called medium-of-origination.
In the instance of this Mezzotint On-line, the original
idea for the Handmade Dogs began on a rooftop in 1984,
in a photo medium called cyanotype, or blue-process. The experience
itself is another story. Where you--the visitor--now have come
in, the composition was done on a computer, using a paint program
(similar to Adobe Photoshop).
Above: The artist compares the composition for the mezzotint
with an old version of an Ektagraphic (Kodak office copier) print
from his 1988 series, Handmade Dogs (No. 11).
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FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
©1999 Bill H. Ritchie, Jr. ritchie@seanet.com