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| History of printing |
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The hectograph, gelatin duplicator or jellygraph is a printing process that involves transfer of an original, prepared with special inks, to a pan of gelatin or a gelatin pad pulled tight on a metal frame. [1]
While the original use of the technology has diminished, it has recently been revived for use in the art world. The hectograph has been modernized and made practical for anyone to use. [2]
The special aniline dyes for making the master image came in the form of ink or in pens, pencils, carbon paper and even typewriter ribbon. Hectograph pencils and pens are sometimes still available. Various other inks have been found usable to varying degrees in the process; master sheets for spirit duplicators have also been pressed into service. Unlike a spirit duplicator master, a hectograph master is not a mirror image. Thus, when using a spirit duplicator master with a hectograph, one writes on the back of the purple sheet, using it like carbon paper to produce an image on the white sheet, rather than writing on the front of the white sheet to produce a mirror image on its back.
The master is placed on the gelatin and spirits applied to transfer the ink from the master to the gelatin. After transfer of the image to the inked gelatin surface, copies are made by pressing paper against it.
When a pad ceased to be useful, the gelatin could be soaked with spirits, the ink sponged away, and the pad left clean for the next master.
A grey-colored, thick, absorbent paper pad was supplied to cover the gelatin surface for storage. This also removed ink from the surface, but it took many hours to do so. Care needed to be taken that the gelatin surface was kept clean, and not damaged (e.g. by fingernails) during duplicating.
Although the name "hecto-graph" implies production of 100 copies, in reality the gelatin process produced print runs of somewhere between 20 and 80 copies, depending upon the skill of the user and the quality of the original. At least eight different colors of hectographic ink were available at one time, but purple was the most popular because of its density and contrast.
| Siege of Khartoum notes (1884) | |
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Siege of Khartoum promissory notes issued and hand-signed by Gen. Charles George Gordon (1884). The top note is hand-signed, the bottom note uses a hectographic signature. [3] | |
Hectography, requiring limited technology and leaving few traces behind, has been deemed useful both in low-technology environments and in clandestine circumstances where discretion was necessary. In the earlier 20th century, the process lent itself to small runs of school classroom test papers, church newsletters and science fiction fanzines. Prisoners-of-war at Stalag Luft III (the scene of The Great Escape) [4] and at Colditz Castle during World War II used an improvised hectograph to reproduce documents for a planned escape attempt.
The Communist authorities in the Jiangsu–Anhui Border Area of China used the process for postage stamps in November 1948, produced in sheets of 35, with thirteen $50 values, six $100, twelve $200, two $300 and two $500 values. [5]
It has also been used, though not very extensively, as an artistic medium in printmaking. The Russian Futurists used it for book illustrations, and the German expressionist Emil Nolde made four hectographs.
Stephen King, in his book On Writing , writes of how he and his elder brother Dave used the process to create their newspaper, Dave's Rag.
It was also used in professional situations; in Macy's advertising department during the 1950s and 1960s, full-page newspaper ad layouts were drawn with hectograph pencils and then duplicated on a hectograph to make file copies for future reference. Before the popularization of spirit duplicators and the mimeograph, there were mechanized hectography machines that used a drum, rather than a simple flat tray of gelatin.
In the final chapters of The Pothunters by P. G. Wodehouse the major characters use a jellygraph to produce a school magazine at very short notice. Wodehouse assumes his reader knows exactly what a jellygraph is and alludes to its being unattractive: "This jelly business makes one beastly sticky. I think we'll keep to print in future."
George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) describes a somewhat more subversive schoolboy publication:
And at that moment, in the years just after the War, England was so full of revolutionary opinion that even the public schools were infected by it. The young, even those who had been too young to fight, were in a bad temper with their elders, as well they might be; practically everyone with any brains at all was for the moment a revolutionary. Meanwhile the old—those over sixty, say—were running in circles like hens, squawking about "subversive ideas". Gordon and his friends had quite an exciting time with their "subversive ideas". For a whole year they ran an unofficial monthly paper called the Bolshevik, duplicated with a jellygraph. It advocated Socialism, free love, the dismemberment of the British Empire, the abolition of the Army and Navy, and so on and so forth. It was great fun. Every intelligent boy of sixteen is a Socialist. At that age one does not see the hook sticking out of the rather stodgy bait. [6]
While the hectograph process is obsolete for printing on paper, it is still used for making temporary tattoos on human skin. Tattoo artists use hectograph pencils to draw pictures on paper and then transfer them to the recipient's skin.[ citation needed ]
A similar method is used by nail artists and manicurists for a process called nail stamping. Nail polish is brushed onto a metal plate which is etched with a pattern. After wiping off the excess, the stamping block is pushed against the plate, picking up the polish retained by the etched area, which is then transferred to the recipient's fingernail.
It is also used to create unique acrylic paint prints. The gelatine hectograph has been commercialized by Joan Bess and Lou Ann Gleason. [7] The hectograph has been plasticized, and made more resilient. Recipes are available on the Web for creating a printing plate from common household materials. [8]
The basic printing technique is uncomplicated. Paint is spread over the plate with a brayer, a sheet of paper is placed over the paint, then the back of the paper is rubbed briefly and the print pulled up. The wet paint adheres to the paper. The attractive characteristics of the prints are due to the marks made in the paint before the paper is placed on the plate.[ further explanation needed ]
The substrate materials used for printing are diverse: any paper can be used; fabric, plastic/acetate sheets, different types of tape, cardboard, wooden boards, sheet metal, almost anything that paint will stick to can be used. The prints can be used in many different artistic applications.[ citation needed ]
Lithography is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German author and actor Alois Senefelder and was initially used mostly for musical scores and maps. Lithography can be used to print text or images onto paper or other suitable material. A lithograph is something printed by lithography, but this term is only used for fine art prints and some other, mostly older, types of printed matter, not for those made by modern commercial lithography.
A mimeograph machine was a low-cost duplicating machine that worked by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process was called mimeography, and a copy made by the process was a mimeograph.
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine ; however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The earliest known form of printing evolved from ink rubbings made on paper or cloth from texts on stone tablets, used during the sixth century. Printing by pressing an inked image onto paper appeared later that century. Later developments in printing technology include the movable type invented by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD and the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. The technology of printing played a key role in the development of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses.
Duplicating machines were the predecessors of modern document-reproduction technology. They have now been replaced by digital duplicators, scanners, laser printers and photocopiers, but for many years they were the primary means of reproducing documents for limited-run distribution. The duplicator was pioneered by Thomas Edison and David Gestetner, with Gestetner dominating the market up until the late 1990s.
Chine-collé or chine collé is a printmaking technique in which the image is transferred onto a surface that is bonded onto a heavier support in the printing process. One purpose is to allow the printmaker to print on a much more delicate surface, such as Japanese paper or linen, that pulls finer details off the plate. Another purpose is to provide a background colour behind the image that is different from the surrounding backing sheet.
A spirit duplicator is a printing method invented in 1923 by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld that was commonly used for much of the rest of the 20th century. The term "spirit duplicator" refers to the alcohols that were a major component of the solvents used in these machines.
Offset printing is a common printing technique in which the inked image is transferred from a plate to a rubber blanket and then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier. Ink rollers transfer ink to the image areas of the image carrier, while a water roller applies a water-based film to the non-image areas.
Chromolithography is a method for making multi-colour prints. This type of colour printing stemmed from the process of lithography, and includes all types of lithography that are printed in colour. When chromolithography is used to reproduce photographs, the term photochrome is frequently used. Lithography is a method of printing on flat surfaces using a flat printing plate instead of raised relief or recessed intaglio techniques.
Photogravure is a process for printing photographs, also sometimes used for reproductive intaglio printmaking. It is a photo-mechanical process whereby a copper plate is grained and then coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which had been exposed to a film positive, and then etched, resulting in a high quality intaglio plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph.
The Gestetner is a type of duplicating machine named after its inventor, David Gestetner (1854–1939). During the 20th century, the term Gestetner was used as a verb—as in Gestetnering. The Gestetner company established its base in London, filing its first patent in 1879. The business grew, remaining within the control of the Gestetner family, and acquiring other businesses. In 1995, the Gestetner company was acquired by the Ricoh Corporation of Japan.
Monoprinting is a type of printmaking where the intent is to make unique prints, that may explore an image serially. Other methods of printmaking create editioned multiples, the monoprint is editioned as 1 of 1. There are many techniques of mono-printing, in particular the monotype. Printmaking techniques which can be used to make mono-prints include lithography, woodcut, and etching.
Gyotaku is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish, a practice which dates back to the mid-1800s. This form of nature printing was used by fishermen to record their catches, but has also become an art form of its own.
Viscosity printing is a multi-color printmaking technique that incorporates principles of relief printing and intaglio printing. It was pioneered by Stanley William Hayter.
Risograph is a brand of digital duplicators manufactured by the Riso Kagaku Corporation, that are designed mainly for high-volume photocopying and printing. It was released in Japan in 1980. It is sometimes called a printer-duplicator, as newer models can be used as a network printer as well as a stand-alone duplicator. When printing or copying many duplicates of the same content, it is typically far less expensive per page than a conventional photocopier, laser printer, or inkjet printer.
Collotype is a gelatin-based photographic printing process invented by Alphonse Poitevin in 1855 to print images in a wide variety of tones without the need for halftone screens. The majority of collotypes were produced between the 1870s and 1920s. It was the first form of photolithography.
Thermo-Fax is 3M's trademarked name for a photocopying technology which was introduced in 1950. It was a form of thermographic printing and an example of a dry silver process. It was a significant advance as no chemicals were required, other than those contained in the copy paper itself. A thin sheet of heat sensitive copy paper was placed on the original document to be copied, and exposed to infrared energy. Wherever the image on the original paper contained carbon, the image absorbed the infrared energy when heated. The heated image then transferred the heat to the heat sensitive paper producing a blackened copy image of the original.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to books:
The oil print process is a photographic printmaking process that dates to the mid-19th century. Oil prints are made on paper on which a thick gelatin layer has been sensitized to light using dichromate salts. After the paper is exposed to light through a negative, the gelatin emulsion is treated in such a way that highly exposed areas take up an oil-based paint, forming the photographic image.
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