A technical dictionary of printmaking, André Béguin. Back to Main Page of the "Printmaking dictionary" A la poupée copied from Ad Steinman's article on "printmaking bulletin board", 22-01-2000 With à la poupée printing you can place ink over already inked and wiped area's of your plate. It gives your colours a common hue, which is helpful when printing landscapes or so. But if you want to keep your colours bright you can start from a clean plate inking every part in its own colour with dolls, carefully wiping so as not to mix with neigbouring colours. If you want to let the inks flow from one colour to another, mix the different colours on the plate where they touch. The biggest problem with multiple plate printing is printing in register, that is printing the plates exactly on top of each other. Since your print on damp paper, this will stretch with every run through the press. There is no definite answer to this problem. Running the damp paper through the press twice before printing helps, it lessens the stretching. There are about two dozen techniques for printing in register, not counting the combinations. Learn a few from literature and find your own way best suited for your plates. "A la poupée printing" and multiple plate printing are described in most books published in the last thirty years, as Doug Humes said. It should not be a problem to find a few in your library.[poupée printing, dolly printing] Back to Main Page of the "Printmaking dictionary"