Marie Price has been using washi, japanese handmade papers, for years in her inventive and versatile printmaking.

I asked Marie to share with us some of her techniques she uses to make prints. I like these ideas because you could do this without a press. It would be challenging, but worth the experiment. Thanks Marie!

"One of my favorite techniques is the "lift" print. It is a very simple method of printmaking that involves rolling out a thin slab of ink onto a glass surface using a roller that corresponds to the size of the image you want. The artist draws on the back of a sheet of paper that has been placed directly onto the ink slab face down, and once the drawing is completed, "lifts" the paper off to reveal the image. Because I use washi papers exclusively, I always place a sheet of newsprint over top of the washi to protect it, and draw on the newsprint rather than directly onto the washi. Where the pencil has pressed the sheet of paper as you draw, the ink gets taken up from the slab, giving you a fuzzy rich line or texture of ink. You can draw with a pencil, the back of you hand, a finger, or an old toothbrush, anything that is handy. Each implement will render a distinctive mark".

"Sometimes I draw a figure on a sheet of washi and cut it out. After cutting it, I place the figure face down onto an existing inked plate, either a woodcut or etching plate. I may put the cutout upside down or sideways on the plate. I may run it through the press several times placing it in a different spot each time. By doing this, I ensure that there are all kinds of marks on this one little cutout. Now I have a single image that I then glue onto a completely new sheet of paper. I repeat this process for all the other images or figures and finally combine them all to form the final image. Each figure of that final image comes from a variety of different plates and is glued onto the support paper through the chine colle process".

To see more go to http://www.marie-price.com