The plate is then sealed with a coat of varnish before being covered with ink and wiped. The plate is then placed on the bed of an etching press, covered with a piece of dampened paper, and run through the press. The pressure of the rollers combined with the damp paper draws the ink out from the surfaces of the plate resulting in an often richly textured print sometimes with a characteristically 3D embossed surface.

Collagraphs are often a combination of relief and intaglio processes. And a multi-coloured Collagraph plate can take hours to ink up and wipe before the print can be taken.

A lithograph can be printed from the traditional block of limestone used in stone lithography or from light sensitive photo-plates, zinc or polyester plates. Each material offers the artist a different range of marks and allows prints to be created with a wide range of individual qualities. Stone lithography is characterised by its direct drawn and painterly qualities with the image drawn directly onto the stone’s surface with a greasy ink or crayon enabling a rich variety of marks and textures to be created directly and spontaneously. Photo plate lithography allows high quality photographic or computer manipulated imagery on acetate to be exposed onto the plate. Likewise painted and drawn marks on acetate can also be exposed to photo-plates.

All lithographs are printed by first sponging the plate or stone with water and rolling oil-based ink across the surface with a roller. The water acts as a barrier allowing the oily ink to adhere only to the drawn or exposed areas.

Once inked the stone/plate and paper are run through a press under high pressure and the ink is transferred onto the paper. Inking is repeated until the entire edition has been printed. The process of preparing a stone or plate, drawing up a new image for each subsequent colour, inking by hand and carefully positioning the paper for each printing has to be repeated for each colour that the artist wishes to print.

A monotype is a unique print process in the sense that there is only one impression available. Monotypes are created by painting or rolling printing ink onto the surface of a metal plate or sheet of Perspex. Unlike other print processes, this lets the artist apply more than one colour at once. When the artwork is complete, the plate or Perspex is placed on the bed of a printing press. Dampened or dry paper is placed on top and run through the press. The pressure transfers the ink from the plate to the paper.

If the artists wishes to add more details or colours, the paper is trapped in the printing press, the plate removed and reworked before being carefully repositioned and run through the press again.

Painters sometimes favour this method of printmaking as it is very spontaneous and involves no printmaking processing which can take considerable time. A monotype is a unique print, in the sense that there can only be one impression, i.e. like a painting or drawing.  Monoprints are similar although in the case of a monoprint the plate will have been worked into e.g. to give part of the image an intaglio line whereas a monotype, although it may be produced using a plate, the plate has not been changed in any way.

Woodcut, linocut and woodblock are all forms of relief printing. In all types of relief printing the image is carved out of the wood (or linoleum) with sharp knives and gouges, so that the image becomes raised next to the lower ‘cut’ areas. Once cut the printing block is inked up using a hard roller. The roller only inks the uncut areas and once inked, paper is placed over the block and pressure applied either by rubbing the back of the paper or by a relief press. What is particular to relief printing is that the cut areas remain as white paper, so the artist has to carefully consider what areas to cut away.

A woodcut may show a characteristic wood grain that may add to the aesthetic feel of the image and can be used to great effect when the right piece of wood is chosen with care. Many artists will these days choose to cut their blocks from MDF, Linoleum or vinyl flooring, modern materials that have their own characteristics. Blocks of very hard end grain wood are used to create Wood Engravings which when skilfully cut with especially sharp tools can produce very fine detail.

Japanese woodblock prints differ from other relief prints in that the water based ink is often applied to the cut blocks with brushes and each block is printed without a press. The paper is positioned on the inked block and rubbed hard through the back of the paper with a flat pad known as a barren. This allows for more variety and subtlety in colour and tone than is usually seen in a ‘rolled-up’ relief print, the results often have a softer watercolour quality.

In screen printing a fine fabric mesh is stretched tightly over a frame. Traditionally meshes were made of silk, hence the term ‘silk-screen’ although modern meshes are made from tougher polyester mesh. Images are made by blocking areas of this mesh with stencils and then are printed by pushing the inks through the screen mesh using a squeegee. The simplest type of stencil Can be made from cut or torn paper applied to the screen mesh, today however, artists more commonly use far more sophisticated light sensitive emulsion stencils as they can produce greater detail and a wide variety of marks and textures. To prepare the screen, the screen mesh is coated with the light sensitive emulsion.