The language of art – part two

For those of you who’ve already read our earlier article about the language of original art, welcome back. For anyone who missed it, the idea behind this two-part mini-series is to empower us to walk into an art gallery (which, let’s face it, can be intimidating) and understand. Understand what art might be trying to express, how art is made and how valuable certain pieces may be. And trust us ­– it’s been a learning curve.

If this knowledge simply makes you feel a little more comfortable next time you walk into a gallery, then we’ve done our job. Heck, even if this article encourages you to visit an art gallery for the first time (either in ages or ever), that would be amazing. But for some of you, we also hope fleshing out some of the more common artistic terms will help you feel confident enough to buy a piece of art for your home. Because whether we know a lot about it or a little, art can lift us.

Nestled on the borders of where Jesmond meets Newcastle’s city centre, within a gorgeously atmospheric, three-storey Georgian townhouse, Hancock Gallery brings together local and international artists within its walls. Combined, their work offers an examination of everything we experience in our everyday lives: from pop culture and consumerism through to expressive colour, fashion and portraiture. And while we’d hardly call ourselves experts, we found ourselves enthralled with it all… with a little help from Chris.

Now, he’s lending his expertise once more to help us tell our etchings from our engravings. So without further ado, here’s everything we need to know about prints…

‘Absolutely! A print can hold the marks and indentations that any medium of original art can,’ explains Chris. ‘It’s just a different process – and a way in which, sometimes, you can make more than one of the same piece.

‘Open-edition prints are the opposite – prints which have no limitation on the number that can be printed,’ Chris continues. ‘For example, most prints that are found in gift shops, or any posters or mass-printed material will be open editioned.’

SO HOW ARE PRINTS MADE?

So it turns out that, in essence, many of the printing techniques out there are more sophisticated versions of the old potato stamp method – carving into a material to create a protruding design, which is then covered with ink or paint and pressed onto your final surface (paper, canvas, etc.). But instead of potatoes, artists tend to use printing presses. And the method of carving a raised design above the main surface of your imprinting material? Relief printing.

BUT PRINTS CAN ALSO BE MADE…IN THE OPPOSITE WAY?

So this is where it gets a little more confusing. We were with Chris with the whole potato stamp analogy. But there are also printing techniques which work in the exact opposite way – where the design is carved into (and below) the main surface of a material, and it is this sunken area which then holds ink. The material is laid onto a roller press and then paper is placed on top and forced through the press under very high pressure. This is known as intaglio printing.

And drypoint etching is a similar technique, just without the use of any chemicals. ‘A dry point implement is used to etch into a softer metal (again, usually copper), to create an image,’ says Chris. ‘Ink is then applied to the copper plate, then wiped away leaving ink in the etched recesses only.’ Also very similar to engraving, the main difference with drypoint etching is the implement used to create the design (a needle, rather than the burin of engravers).

And finally, there’s aquatint. ‘Again, aquatint is similar to that of etching,’ says Chris. ‘However, aquatint is focussed more on shape than the linear and mimics the style of watercolour – hence the name.’

‘Then there’s screen printing. This is a process where you transfer ink onto an under layer (paper or canvas) through a mesh – which the artist has designed. This works because parts of the image created on the mesh can be made non-permeable to the ink used, meaning it won’t let the ink through to the material underneath.’

To find out more about the language of art, to see what exhibitions are coming up at Hancock Gallery or to plan your visit, check out their website, Facebook page or Instagram

Or pop in and see Chris, grab a coffee and check out the incredible artwork that’s sitting right on our doorstep, at: 2 Jesmond Road West, Newcastle NE2 4PQ