Printmaking processes such as relief, monoprint and stencil printing, understanding editions, registration and repetition, and using print purposefully for AO2.

What this dot point is asking

Printmaking is a powerful way to refine and repeat an image, and it is a strong vehicle for AO2 when used with purpose. You should understand the main processes you can access at GCSE, what each one does well, and how to choose print because it suits your idea, not because it looks impressive. The marks come from purposeful selection and reviewing, exactly as the AO2 wording demands.

The main processes

A few accessible processes give you a wide range of effects.

Editions, registration and repetition

Print's strength is controlled repetition, which brings its own vocabulary.

Using print purposefully

Print should answer a need in your project, not be added for variety alone.

What each process does well

Choosing the right print process is itself an AO2 decision, so it helps to know the character of each. Relief printing (lino, polystyrene or collagraph) gives bold, graphic shapes and strong contrast, and because the block can be reprinted it suits pattern, repetition and editions. It rewards simplification, since fine detail tends to break away or fail to print. Monoprinting is the most painterly and immediate process: you draw or roll ink onto a smooth surface and take a single impression, so it captures gesture and accident in a way relief cannot, but it cannot be repeated exactly. Stencil printing, including screen-style approaches, gives flat, even areas of colour through cut openings, which suits bold layered designs and is forgiving of repeated layers if you register carefully.

Knowing these differences lets you match the process to the idea. A theme about industrial repetition suits the editioned, mechanical quality of relief. A theme about fleeting movement suits the one-off spontaneity of monoprint. A theme built on flat, poster-like graphic shapes suits stencil. Stating that reasoning in your annotation is what turns a print from a pretty extra into evidence of purposeful, refined selection, which is precisely what the AO2 wording asks for.

Print as refined media choice

Print is most convincing when it grows from your earlier drawing and research.