What is Risograph printing?
My favourite way to create art prints
I love creating riso prints, and often find myself trying to explain how exactly the process works, so I thought I’d write a little post about it - so you fall in love with risograph too!
Risograph printing is similar to screen printing, but created using a big printer that’s similar to a photocopier. Each colour layer is printed one at a time and layered together to form different colours where they overlap. Instead of screens and squeegees though, the printer has a roller inside with the stencil of each layer to print onto the paper that zooms through.
The process was invented in Japan in the 80s, and is also more eco friendly than regular digital printing as it is a cold process, uses little electricity and soy-based inks!
It creates cool textured prints with a unique vibe, perfect for limited colour palette artworks. Each print is slightly different, but this adds to the charm.
Below is my ‘Save Our Oceans’ riso print, made up from 3 colour layers, green, red and blue. This would have been printed starting with the green layer, then those same prints would have been put back through the printer and had the red layer printed over the top, and finally repeated with the blue layer.
The resulting print has some areas where the red and green overlap and create a brownish tone. Extra colours like this are created when the layers overlap, (a bit like when you use the ‘multiply’ blending mode on photoshop/procreate) It’s all about experimenting with layering different opacities of each colour, and you can make a huge variety of shades, even with only two or three colours!
Here’s a few of the riso prints I’ve made in the past (most are still available in my Etsy shop!)
Save Our Oceans - 3 colours (Seafoam Green, Red, Blue)
20% of the sales of this print go to Surfers Against Sewage!
Retro Games - 2 colours (Fluorescent Pink, Blue)
Inspired by my partner’s love of retro video games, I think he owns pretty much every console here!
Mother Shipton - 2 colours (Yellow, Blue)
Inspired by a visit to Yorkshire witch Mother Shipton’s cave to see the hanging petrified objects!
Arcades - 3 colours (Black, Fluorescent Pink, Green)
This print was from a sketchbook page I did from observation at a seaside arcade, whilst my partner and his sister played on a driving game.
I’ve got lots of ideas for more riso prints soon, so watch this space!