Paper printmaking material application techniques

Author: Zhang Songzu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-11-01
Features: When people talk about paper-cut prints, they often think of it as a children's art game—just a piece of paper, a pair of scissors, plus paste, glue, ink, and poster colors. Cutting, pasting, and printing can accompany children through a creative art-filled childhood. This is indeed an effective aspect of using paper-cut print techniques in art education for popularizing art. As for paper-cut prints, their popularity stems from teachers intentionally simplifying them into easily accessible elements: paper materials, carving knives, scissors, glue, ink, and rollers. In reality, the exploration of paper-cut printmaking in terms of creation and expression involves a wide range of techniques and is extremely expressive. It nearly encompasses the characteristics and technical language of relief, intaglio, planographic, and stencil prints, and it also possesses the ability to integrate with other printmaking varieties for comprehensive expression. I have even experienced in my creative practice that its collage techniques are highly flexible, like a traffic dispatch center, where one can freely select and mobilize their creative partners. Domestic printmakers often enjoy using paper-cut print techniques combined with other materials for collage, which is called collage printmaking (e.g., using fabric materials, real plant stems and leaves). Even broader combinations with other materials are referred to as comprehensive printmaking. In foreign countries, this production technique is called collaged printmaking. The application of this collaged printmaking technique in other printmaking varieties, such as etching collage, silk-screen print collage, and lithography collage, all exhibit diverse variations, generally realized through printing presses. This book includes: the characteristics of paper-cut prints; the functional differences of paper thickness; the use of paper materials and texture creation, etc.