Original Print: An image produced from a matrix that may be a plate, stone, wood block or any other material like silk-screen.

Reproduction: A copy of an image that already exists in another medium. Reproductions include Offset-Lithography, and Iris or other digital prints that may be misleadingly signed and numbered by the artist.

Plate: A flat surface on which something is incised, or engraved, or eroded by an acid or mordant. In the case of plate lithography, the image is drawn or painted.

Limited Editions: Multiple prints made from a matrix created by an artist. Each print is signed and numbered by the artist. The prints are often referred to by the name of the medium used to make the print, like etchings or lithographs. Once the prints have been made, the matrix, or plate is canceled or destroyed.

Types of Prints

Relief Prints: Woodblock used for woodcut and Linoleum blocks for Linocuts are gouged away with sharp tools. The raised uncut surface is inked and printed.

Intaglio: An image, design, or text is incised into the surface of a plate, which, after excess ink is wiped away, the print can be made. The grooves or pits that are formed as a result of the etching process hold the ink that will form the image when the print is made. Intaglio printing processes include: etching, aquatint, engraving, and mezzotint among others.

Lithography: A paleographic printing process where the surface of a stone or metal plate is chemically treated so that ink will only adhere to an image area. This image area is then rolled with ink and printed.

Silk-screen Printing: A process where the image is applied to a fine mesh screen. Non-image areas are blocked out with a resist. When the print is being made, ink is forced through the open areas of the screen and deposited on the substrate of paper or fabric.

Monotype: Printed by a transfer onto paper or fabric. A unique print of a drawing or painting.

Carborundum: A technique to create a textured effect in etching. This process after it is set must be hand inked.

Certificates of Authenticity