Can I Say Something Nice To You About Something Nice That Someone Told Me, Chris Johanson

Chris Johanson is known for his street art and painting, which sometimes incorporates text with cartoon-like images. This print features five similar yet distinct cartoonish figures, one of which speaks. Similarly, it was made using several different printmaking techniques. Sugar-lift is an etching process that involves the application of painterly marks to an etching plate, with the marks being positive rather than negative. Sugar can be an element of the printing solution. A la poupée is an intaglio printmaking technique for using different ink colors of ink using a ball-shaped wad of fabric to apply the ink to a copperplate. Paper is printed through just one run in the press. In French, the term a la poupée means "with a doll," which refers to the wad of fabric.

Etching is an intaglio printmaking technique. Intaglio includes all techniques (most commonly engraving and etching) where incisions or indentations are made in a plate to hold the ink and create lines. In etching, a metal plate is prepared with an acid-resistant ground. The artist draws lines through the ground that are ‘bitten’ and made deeper when the plate is immersed in an acid bath. Once the ground is removed, the artist applies ink to the plate that rests in the sunken lines but is wiped from the plate surface. The artist then places the plate against dampened paper and passes it through a printing press, which exerts the pressure necessary to transfer the ink in the sunken lines to the paper.
Sugar lift etching is a form of aquatint etching. The artist paints onto a prepared plate with a sugar and ink solution. The painted areas will hold ink and appear dark in the finished print. After applying the sugar mixture, the artist applies a varnish to the plate and submerges it in warm water where the sugar layer lifts away, giving the technique its name.