This original print technique is known as collllagraph. The plate is a piece of rag mat board. A piece of fabric
with a very fine mesh was glued to the surface. (the fabric is of a sort normally used to create silk screen prints.) If the plate were printed
at this point, the image would be a solid dark tone. The image is
created by painting acrylic gesso and gloss or matte acrylic mediums over the
fabric. The acrylic fills up the mesh of the fabric so that it holds less
ink and thus prints a lighter tone. Thin applications result in dark
tones, while increasing the thickness of the medium or the number of layers
results in lighter tones. Gloss medium is applied where the lightest tones
are desired. The plate is wiped by hand in two colors, and printed on damp
paper on an etching press.
This view of El Capitan is actually the reverse of what you
would see in Yosemite, because I did not reverse the image when working the
plate. The image on the plate is a mirror image of what prints.