Natural printing is a printing process, developed in the 18th century, that uses plants, animals, stones and other natural subjects to produce images. Subjects undergo several stages to give a direct impression on materials such as lead, chewing gum, and photographic plates, which are then used in the printing process.
While some sources state that Benjamin Franklin invented the natural printing of leaf prints, using copper plates, in 1737 to thwart counterfeit banknotes, another source also reported a friend of Franklin, the Philadelphia naturalist Joseph Breintnall, to make contact with the natural mold of the leaves. around 1730. Together they sent natural prints printed directly from inked leaves to English naturalists.
Another person associated with the process invention, Naturselbstdruck , is Alois Auer; The first publication, the instructions for the process, is by this Austrian printer in the Discovery of the Process of Nature Printing: a Discovery... Vienna, 1853. It is written in four languages ​​by the author. He showed the use of plants, fish fossils, and lace impressed with the roller to the tin plate, it was dyed and moved to the final mold.
Many others use botanical and natural history illustrations to use techniques that are 'quick text', or for this type of accuracy, in the representation of the subject. Another printer, the Englishman Henry Bradbury, immediately used the process of 'natural printing' Auer to publish his own work. This includes two major botanical works;
- The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland , Moore, Thomas. (1857) and the appearance of this species is readily adapted to the process; two-dimensional prints will reveal shapes and details for species identification.
- The Nature-Printed British Sea-Weeds , W.G. Johnstone & amp; A. Croall. 1859-60.
Sherman Denton in his book As Nature Shows Them: Moth and Butterfly... uses the wing of the species he describes by pressing it into the page itself. For this work he uses more than 50,000 insects.
Video Nature printing
Auer Method
The Auer method can only be used with objects with tolerable flat surfaces, such as dried and pressed plants, embroideries and lace, and very little animal production. The object is placed between a plate of steel and another lead, both smooth, and polished. They are then pulled through a pair of rollers under considerable pressure. When the plates are separated, it is found that the perfect impression of the object has been made on the tin plate. It can be used directly as an engraved plate, but only if very few impressions are desired, because it is too soft to reject the action of the printing press for practical purposes. For a larger number of images, the facsimile to be used as a platen is made in copper by the electrotype process.
Maps Nature printing
Further reading
- Eric P. Newman, "New Franklin Discovery Found: Printing Nature on Colonial and Continental Currencies," The Numismatist (1964)
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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