Making a Print on a Risograph

Earlier today I published a five minute video on YouTube that goes through the basic steps involved in creating a three color print on a Risograph. Most people are probably not familiar with a Risograph as it’s a niche product that caters to markets like flyer printing for churches as well as being used in some school environments.

Artists are one of the current groups who make use of this quirky but expressive stencil-based process. The technology in a Riso was originally intended for making one or two color prints. Somewhat like a silkscreen, a stencil is created by the machine which ink is then pushed through to make the print. As always, people tend to do things that weren’t originally planned such as running prints through repeatedly to overlay multiple colors. The variation that happens with registration means the different color layers won’t always line up the same and gives the output a signature style that has the feel of older comic books that were printed using four color offset lithography.

The video doesn’t cover making the stencils but that’s a fairly straight forward process of creating  and printing gray scale images on a computer for each color and then scanning them on the Riso. What you will see is a three color print being made using red, blue and black inks. The source of the gray scale masks used in the video came from artwork I created for making the cover of an earlier issue of my zine.

Love it or hate it, feel free to leave comments about the process as well as the video either on YouTube or here. Well, okay, if you hate it, no need to be abusive but I’ll gladly listen to constructive criticism with an open mind on improving.