What is printmaking?

Printmaking is when you make copies of a picture by using tools and special paper, like making cookies from a cookie cutter.

Imagine you have a favorite toy, maybe a dinosaur or a unicorn. You want to give your friend a copy of it so they can play with one too. Instead of drawing the whole thing again, you could press it onto clay or wax, then lift it off and make another one. That’s kind of what printmakers do, but with pictures.

Printmakers start by making a special plate, like a stamp, on a flat surface. They draw or carve their picture into this plate. Then they press paper onto the plate using ink. When they lift the paper up, it has the same picture as the plate!

Sometimes they make many copies from one picture, just like how you can use a cookie cutter to make lots of cookies from one shape.

Think of it like pressing your hand into wet paint and then pressing it onto a piece of paper, when you lift your hand, there’s a copy of your hand on the paper. Printmakers do this with pictures, but they can make hundreds of copies all the same!