Looking at the past we see that there have been several printing practices in india which are either distinguished according to their geographical location or their beliefs and culture. We have the ajrak printing in Kutch (Gujarat), the bagh style based in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh, the bagru printing in Jaipur(rajasthan) , the handpainted kalamkari in Srikalahasti(Andhra Pradesh) and many more.

But there were few styles which came later and became really popular like Batik, Screen Printing and Digital Printing. And others like emboss printing and letter press printing for text and papers.

 A short course about learning and experiencing three styles of printing like wood block printing, screen print and letter press printing.

The above is a picture of the wood block print which i made during the course.

The block was carved on a thin wood square slab using simple wood cutting tools.

Choosing nature as my inspiration, i scrapped the block in such a manner which would a produce a little blurry image moving away from the regualr prominent block prints.

Screen printing was something which always drew my interest because of the various stages innvolved in its process and all the stages carried out manually.Earlier this method was called silkscreen printing because of the silk fabric being used to make the screens. Nowadays for the screens polyester is being used generally.

For this assignment i looked into mughal embrodiery motifs and carpet motifs and drew a motif which was screen printed.

After experimenting with two textile printing techniques, i tried the letter press technique which prints from raised images using a printing press. Metal blocks with embossed type font on them brushed with ink and pressed against paper to get a print.