A private research platform: Innovative, Nontoxic and Safer Printmaking and General Art Safety across all media | Art and Research | Essays on Art and Printed Art | SciArt Collaborations | Safer and Innovative Painting | Art and Health | Graphic Innovation | Non-Hazardous Practice, Methods and Materials | Paints, Pigments, Solvents and VOCs | Art & Science | On Big Drawings – A Pandemic Discourse | Wellness in Professional Art Practice | Health, Safety, and sustainable Practice in the Visual Arts and Crafts. © 2003 – 2024
note: nontoxic-print is a very extensive resource; scroll down for links to key pages and essays
Full Site Map: a l l p a g e s / t o p i c s
Safety Professionals and Resources
Keith Howard + (co-author F. Kiekeben), NY, 2003: The Contemporary Printmaker
Color Intaglio Type: Storm over Katrina
Press Play: The Art of Keith Howard
Four Color Halftone Intaglio Type
Intaglio Type Manual:
Photo Etching Reinvented | Etch Intaglio Type | Non-etch Intaglio Type
Beginners Compendium to Nontoxic Printmaking
(etched brass objects; by: F Kiekeben / Eduardo Paolozzi)
The Edinburgh Etch: etch copper or brass
Intaglio Manual : Metals | Plate Preparation | Hard Ground | Orono Ground (soft) | Aquatint | Dry Techniques | Intaglio Printing | Collagraph | Acrylic Wash | Mark Making | Preparing for Etching | Stripping | The Acrylic Resist Etching Workshop | Color Printing
Ventilation of Toxic Substances
Safe Substitutions and Alternatives
The Saline Sulfate Etch: etch aluminium, zinc, or steel
Metal Salts: The new Etching Chemistry
Playing with Polyester in 2024
New Collagraphs : The Archeology Series
On Big Drawings a pandemic Discourse
Electro Etching Basis – The Theory
Passing Horizons – Malgorzata Oakes
Water Mixable Oils: A Revolution
SAFER PAINTING: KEY PAGES
Solvent Based Silkscreen Printing
Solvents | Solvent Sickness | Safe Solvents
Letters about Hazardous Materials
Innovative Hard and Soft Ground
Photopolymer Printmaking: Intaglio Type
Digital Halftone Intaglio Type
Photopolymer Plate Safety Concerns
Adhesives, Hot Glue, and Styrofoam
Safer Woodworking in Craft, Art, and Sculpture
Printing Presses and Lead Type
Historical Photography and Electro Etching
Friedhard Kiekeben’s Artwell Projects Studio, Indianapolis
Zea Mays Printmaking Studio (safe and sustainable printmaking)
Printmaking Nontoxic International FB Group
nontoxic-print
Is a private resource, published by an artist and researcher based in Indiana in collaboration with authors & advisors. Our mission is the advancement of knowledge and research in the field of safe and innovative art practices.
Founded online in 2003/04 by F. Kiekeben, J.H. Shaw, and Keith Howard. Published research in print 1989-2025.
Health in the Arts contributions by David Hinkamp, Michael McCann, Monona Rossol, Angela Babin, Merle Spandorfer
Articles on nontoxic-print are published and developed by invitation; We sometimes welcome other suggestions and submissions.
The information on this website is based on what the editors and individual authors believe to be examples of current safety-conscious practice. Progress in the field is ongoing, opinions vary, and new findings emerge frequently. Issues of health and improved working practices
affect everyone involved in making art, and this publication tries to offer a discourse beyond any perceived distinction between ‘innovative’ and ‘traditional’, ‘green’ or ‘toxic’.
Please feel free to use information from this site for your research and practice,
but please reference the copyright of authors and this website (www.nontoxic-print.com) in any materials you may wish to use. Individual users may download pages or pdf’s for personal use.
This is not a formal, official, or a comprehensive, safety site: we publish suggestions, research, and recommendations about good practice and new developments, both by experts
and by informed authors and lay persons.
Reprints and reproduction in other publications by agreement.
Regular users of paints, inks, pigments, and solvents are strongly advised to use all protective measures in all their work and look after their health; over thirty years of our research has shown that science and bodies such as the WHO often change advice to lay users on what’s toxic and what is not. (e.g. many materials advertised as ‘safe’ in the 1990s are now classed as ‘toxic’ due to medical findings). There are many instances where materials and processes were, or are seen, or are advertised as safe, benign, and of low toxicity, but are actually known to industry and scientists as being more harmful and dangerous to users than may be acknowledged in the public domain.
© 2003-2026