TECHNIQUES

In this section we will do our best to explain how our artwork is made.
If you have any more questions please contact us.

DRAWING AND PAINTING

Drawing and painting are the main techniques used for everything in TICHAU.

DRAWING TOOLS
Emma uses graphite pencils with different hardness to create realistic and detailed portraits. She also uses waterproof fineliners of different thicknesses serving different purposes. Fast and expressive lines as a final stage of a mixed media painting or precise and time consuming lineworks, which can be then used as a base for screen print or a giclée print.

Emski, our guest maker, uses Faber-Castell polychromos pencils and biro pens. He creates on paper and then scans it and prints out as giclée art prints.

PAINTING TOOLS
Emma uses many different matt and satin colour emulsions as a primer and base for canvas and wood paintings.

She sometimes uses acrylic paints and watercolours but after finding the best mix of these two in acrylic inks, she can not go back. Acrylic inks come in a form of fluid having very vibrant tones, highly pigmented and very dissolvable. They are acrylic based so are permanent after drying.

Most of the original paintings are mixed media paintings, which means that different materials were used to create them.

PAPER
Emma draws on thick artist’s paper of differently textured surface to reach various effects while drawing with graphite pencils, fineliners or paint. Usually Winsor and Newton 100% cotton and acid free, cold pressed paper of 200-300gsm.

DIGITAL

No prints in TICHAU are drawn digitally, however digital techniques are used at various stages of every artwork. Our artwork takes a long time to prepare and digital techniques are great tools to help with planning and enhancing the final drawn and painted components.

PLANNING
Before anything is getting drawn, components of the future artwork (doesn’t matter if it’s going to be a print or a painting) are put together from photos and little rough sketches in graphic’s software on a tablet. Moving elements about helps finding the best solution for composition.

Prepared merged mockup design serves as a template for a rough pencil sketch on the prepared surface and then as a visual reference while drawing/painting.

IN PROGRESS
When the artwork is ongoing it is being scanned (at a very high quality of 600 or 1200 dpi) at different stages of painting or drawing as the scans can serve as additional colour layers during post production.

Some photos of the ongoing artwork are also being taken at moments of uncertainty to plan well the next steps (for example the colours to be used or introducing additional elements). As much as we cherish expressiveness and fun, there are moments that too much of them can ruin weeks of work.

POST PRODUCTION
Digital post production means all the digital processes run in Photoshop after the artwork is finished (all the elements drawn/painted).

We scan the artwork at a very high resolution of 600/1200 (which basically means very high quality, allowing us to print with no loss in quality of the image on a very large size scale). After the image is scanned, a series of little tweaks is run to enhance the contrast, highlights and darks.

Linework can be turned into a vector graphic (meaning the edge of the line will always be sharp, doesn’t matter how much you zoom in, even x10000). Vectorised linework is being used as a linework layer in digital giclée prints or as a template for screenprint.

At this stage we also change colours to create different colour versions or play about with the opacity of different colour layers and their position to create additional effects (if it's a digital print that was prepared on separate sheets).

GICLÉE

Giclée print - jedno zdanie tutaj

fine art printing using pigment based, archival quality inks, manufactured on advanced inkjet printers

All our giclée prints are printed in our local Glasgow printhouse. All our prints are printed onto the same 300 gsm, Acid and Lignin free, Brilliant Satin Matte paper, using Epson UltraChrome K3 inks (ensuring the amazing colour fidelity, gloss level and scratch resistance).

On special request we can offer other paper kinds that our printhouse supplies.
All our artwork (doesn’t matter if these are components for a digitally merged piece or a mixed media painting) is being prepared firstly by hand and while the original work is available in one size only, with giclée reprints we can do literally ANY size we want revealing the details that were impossible to be seen by a naked eye in the original work but were captured by scanner and magnified greatly.

We offer 3 different generic types of giclée prints.

Giclée print from a digital file - these prints are an effect of merging digitally, previously prepared elements, that had been firstly painted and drawn on separate paper sheets, scanned, digitally post produced , merged together and printed.
Giclée from a painting - these prints are a reprint (reproduction) of a paper, wood or canvas painting. The original work had been scanned, digitally post produced and printed.
Giclée from an original print - these prints are a reproduction of a screen print or dry point etching print. The original work had been scanned, digitally post produced and printed.

SCREEN PRINTING

Screen printing is the process of transferring a stencilled design onto a flat surface by pushing the ink through a silk mesh stretched onto a metal frame, using a rubber blade (called squeegee).

There are many different approaches to this printing technique, different materials, machines and software can be used whilst the basic process stays the same. We will explain here how it’s done with OUR prints.

Screenprint steps:

Piece is being designed on a tablet and drawn on paper with fineliners.
Scanning and vectorising the design.
Based on a vectorised outline create digitally more layers, unless the layers had been hand prepared separately.
Printing the design on an acetate (plastic transparent film) in black in the size that suits our chosen screen.
Coating the screen with a light sensitive emulsion. After the emulsion is applied, the screen needs to be put vertically in a special large oven for an hour.
After drying, the screen together with the acetate template goes into a huge lamp bed. The back areas on the template will block the light to get to the emulsion. Wherever the black printed template is blocking the light, the emulsion will not get hardened by the light. Other areas will.
After exposing to the light, we take the screen to a special washing up area, where with a pressure water gun you get rid of all the paint that wasn’t hardened by the light.

Everywhere where the stencil was, now the mesh is bare, so the paint will be able to go through the mesh.

You put your screen back in the oven so it dries nicely.
You put your screen and secure in the special holders at the printing table press.
Mix your inks, mark where every new piece of paper will be put so all your prints are in the same position.
Happy printing! Pushing the paint through the mesh, layer by layer. Imean, first you do 1st layer, repeating as many times as you want your print run to be, then another etc.

You need to repeat the process from step 5. with every following colour layer, (unless your layers were small enough to all fit on one screen.) You have to be pretty quick as paint dries very fast in a fine mesh not allowing new paint to go through and it really slowens the process when you have to clear your screen from dry paint and dry the screen before the next trial. Screen printing is also a very physical job so adding a rush to it is a real killer but oh so rewarding.

After you’re done for the day, you need to pressure water wash your screen from the ink or with strong cleaning products to clear your screen completely from ink and emulsion before applying a different template. Ideally you’d also need to cover your screen in a special cleaning and preserving solution and leave it on for a week.

DRY POINT ETCHING

Drypoint is an intaglio printmaking method that involves scratching an image into a plastic plate with a pointed tool. These lines create a burr that holds ink, meaning that the print reveals the drawing. After scratching the plate, rubbing the ink in, you create a print by putting your plate through a hand operated roller press with a damp thick paper. The plate needs to be cleaned after and inked again every time to create a new print.