The Art of Printmaking at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University.
The LeRoy Neiman Center for Printed Studies
In the Summer of 2022, I had the extremely good fortune to intern under Master Printer, Nathan Catlin, at the LeRoy Neiman Center for Printed Studies at the Columbia University School of the Arts. Printmaking is an art in its own right, and a rewarding labor of love.
LeRoy Neiman was an American artist known for his brilliantly colored, expressionist paintings and screenprints of athletes, musicians, and sporting events. The LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at the Columbia University School of the Arts was founded by a generous endowment from LeRoy and Janet Neiman in 1996 to promote printmaking through education, production and exhibition of prints.
Making art widely accessible.
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Screenprint.
Pushing ink through stencils renders the printed image. Stencils are applied to a screen in a variety of ways. I transferred designs on transparencies, placed them on screens that were coated with a photo-sensitive emulsion, and then exposed the screens to UV light. Ink is pushed through the screen leaving the design imprinted on the paper below. The process needs to be repeated for each color of the original work. The end result is beautiful.
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Woodcut.
This is the oldest form of printmaking, and involves knives, chisels or gouges used to carve the design into the surface of a wooden block. Raised versus recessed areas of the wood make the difference between what is printed versus not. Taking great care throughout this process is essential for best results.