Neil Harpe, Printmaker

Neil Harpe first discovered printmaking while still in high school. He and several fellow students were given the opportunity to work after school and on weekends making silk screen prints. As a student at the Corcoran Gallery School of Art, he was introduced to relief printmaking (woodcuts and linoleum block prints) and intaglio (etchings). Not content with his printmaker's repertoire of techniques, Harpe went on the study stone lithography and mixed media at the Maryland Institute College of Art. He earned his MFA in advanced color lithography at George Washington University.  After graduate school. Neil continued refining his printmaking skills by working in close collaboration with master lithographer Mel Hunter at Atelier North Star in Burlington, Vermont - printing more than twenty editions of original lithographs (as well as perfecting the finer points of the technique of Mylar lithography.)

A few words about Art Prints...

There are two basic categories of prints in today’s art world: original prints and reproduction prints. Both can be offered as limited editions, signed and numbered or as open editions unlimited in number. An original print is an original work of art, like a painting or drawing. It is not reproduced artificially from a preexisting painting. Reproduction prints are works that start out as an original painting or drawing and then reproduced via one of several printing techniques.  Most often, they are printed using offset lithography similar to that used to print magazines and even most newspapers. Recent advances in print technology have brought about a new digital reproduction process called giclee.  When viewed under magnification, giclee prints do not have the characteristic dot matrix pattern seen in offset prints.

Original Prints

 Etching. Sometimes called “intaglio prints”, etchings are printed from metal plates that the artist has drawn upon. The image is then etched into the plate using a solution of water and acid. A similar intaglio method that is sometimes used by printmakers is called “dry point”. With a dry point, the drawing is simply scratched into the plate manually, then inked and printed. Most editions of dry point etchings can only provide a very small number of copies, as the plate soon wears out during the printing process.   See Neil Harpe's etchings

Lithograph. The image is drawn by hand directly on a stone or plate.  Each copy of the image is printed (or in printmakers’ terms: “pulled”) by hand with painstaking care. Characteristically, original prints are printed in limited numbers, each copy signed and numbered by the artist. The “edition”, meaning the entire number of prints produced, actually becomes the original work of art. Each numbered print represents a portion of the whole original work. When all copies have been pulled, the plate is destroyed, making further copies impossible. Artists have used this technique since Goya first made a series of lithographs in 1825.   See Neil Harpe's Lithographs

Reproductions

Giclee.  A high quality digital print used to reproduce paintings and drawings. Neil Harpe's giclee prints are printed at his studio on 100% cotton rag paper using an Epson 2200 digital printer. These high quality reproductions are archival (fadeless) and are signed and numbered by the artist. Giclee prints are extremely fine in detail, without the dot matrix seen in offset lithography.   See Neil Harpe's Giclee Prints

Offset Reproduction. High speed offset lithography is the commercial printing industry's most commonly used printing method. Offset lithography is the method used to print most books, magazines, and newspapers. For the past half century, the majority of posters and limited edition fine art reproductions have been printed on offset presses.