Prints
Intaglio Prints
The word intaglio comes from the Italian word ' intagliare' meaning 'to cut in'. A copper plate is the usual plate metal and depending on the technique the artist either engraves or uses acid to cut his design into the surface of the metal.
Relief Prints
Relief prints in general are printed from a flat surface in which the white patterns in the design have been removed by knife or graver, leaving the black patterns standing in relief to receive the ink 'film' and produce the print. Wood blocks or lino blocks (or for school children the simple potato) are the usual materials from which the plate for a relief print is composed.
Planographic Prints
The individual planographic techniques are not inter-related in either their processes or methods of printing, unlike that of relief or intaglio printing. They do however all link together because all are made on the surface of a matrix and involve no engraving or carving into that surface giving the artist more freedom in drawing.
