Engraving on an Etching press

I have emerged from motherhood to write again! Our daughter Aila is growing fast and is already learning to eat solids. I figured it is appropriate to finally post about the firefly engraving half a year later, since I was printing it a week or so before she was born. Better late than never...

Below is a little shot of the resingrave block with the DIY sandbag and tools. I had bought the thinner blocks to see if they would be easier to print on the etching press than the thick ones on the letterpresses. The verdict- both were just as easy/challenging. Here is a short story on printing engravings on an etching press.

So I am printing this edition about 8mo + pregnant. Hence sitting down while rolling the plate up. I've got my ink and brayer set up and am using two pieces of unmounted linoleum taped to a plexiglass to guide the roller on the edges.

I was having trouble at first with the paper lying down on the plate and stretching slightly as it went under the roller. Large areas of black would have stretch marks and the end of the plate smeared. You can see it in the close-up below.

So to fix that problem I ended up using the same technique as in the reduction linocut prints I did in San Antonio. Two pieces of foam on either side of the plate holding the paper up until it goes under the roller. Below- setting the plate down and then the paper.

Above- laying the paper down on the press bed. I am running the plate to the right under the roller. The foam is at the back end of the paper going through.

Having the two foam pieces worked great and the prints came out nice and clean after that. Instead of a felt blanket I am using a rubber offset printing blanket. It works well for all kinds of relief printing so you don’t get too much pressure like you do with the wool felts.

Running the print through the press and revealing the print on the other side.

TaDah! Here is a closeup of the print and paper size. The print was done to be a part of the Inkteraction 2011 "Navigating the Currents: 100 Inkteraction Reactions" portfolio. I figured it was one of the last things I could do before the baby came and I would have time to work on it. The portfolio has been touring TX in the beginning of the calendar year and heads to Macon, GA in April. The schedule of exhibitions can be seen here: Inkteraction. The administrators of Inkteraction asked 100 members to volunteer their interpretation of how Inkteraction helps the contemporary printmaker to navigate the electronic currents of the web. The way I see Inkteraction working is kind of like seeing fireflies in the night. They are spread out lighting up all over the place- kind of like our presence on the web- we are here and a moment later offline doing our own thing. It is a very splintered way to interact with people, but through it we find each other, see each others work and then when we meet face to face we are able to recognize each other and build more meaningful relationships.

I'm pretty happy with the way the print turned out, the only thing I'd change would be to work on a deeper black that does not have any white dots in it.

Adios amigos, be back soon with info on two upcoming exhibitions and other things I have been up to!

Printing Intaglio Without a Press

If you are just starting out, a student or don't have the room for a nice press, printing intaglio work can be quite a challenge. I wanted to share a technique of pressless printing that I learned a long time ago from my friend, Margaret Craig, who teaches at the Southwest School or Arts in TX.

What you need are the normal things you would to print your plate + weights, transparent etching ink base and Golden Medium's Targel clear acrylic medium.

Here are some images of my quick setup at home. (You'll see I use some phonebook pages during plate wiping as well.)

In the picture above you can see the inks, targel (which you can get in smaller amounts), plates and plexi that I use to mix ink on. I chose a copper and zink plate from my old stash, the other has a deep aquatint on it and the other just a thin line etching. So you can use this technique for a wide variety of plates.

The picture below you can see my paper, cheap paintbrush, registration sheets and book that I used as weights.

To begin printing, wipe your plate like you normally would. If you have a lot of clear areas on your plate, in other words non-aquatinted areas, roll on a thin coat of transparent base so that your paper does not get glued to the plate. After the transparent base has been rolled on, paint on a thin even coat of Targel with a brush. Place the plate on your registration sheet, paper on top and layer some heavy things on top of it.

Tip- learned from Dan Welden's newsletter that instead of tarlatan, you can also use organze silk for wiping your etching plates. If you can get your hands on some, give it a whirl... Supposedly it lasts longer than tarlatan.

Back to printing- Let the plate dry for an hour or more, depending if you are in a humid or dry environment. We have really dry indoor air in Germany so dry time was a couple of hours. This is a good time to get a snack, do some exercises, watch an episode of your favorite tv show or go play with your baby/dog or husband.

After the acrylic has dried, you can peel the paper off the plate and the ink will stick to the paper. If you peel too soon, as I do in the video, the targel is still wet and will not completely adhere to the paper. When the acrylic is dry, the plate will peel off quite easily- be mindul of peeling your edges though. If you got targel around the edges, it might not start peeling and will tear instead.

The reason that the technique works is that the acrylic dries much faster than the etching ink. We are using Targel because it has "an extremely resinous, syrupy, stringy and tar-like consistency" as described on the Golden website. It's so sticky that it pulls the ink from the grooves of your etching plate when you separate the paper from the plate.

Now, this technique obviously is not the fastest in the world, it will take you anywhere from an hour or more to pull an image, but compared to no press at all, it is better than nothing. If you commit to print an edition this way, I would advise to store your ink under ceramwrap on a glass or plexi. You could also fold the mixed ink in foil/waxpaper and keep it in the fridge. I have not tried it, but you could maybe try to speed up the process by blowdrying the paper on the back to dry the acrylic faster.

Here are images of the cow print. You can see the edges have some paintbrush marks, where I did not paint the targel on very evenly, and the middle has a spot where the targel did not adhere to the paper. That could have been either because I peeled the paper off before the gel had dried or because there was no clear etching base on that spot and the gel adhered to the plate instead of the paper. Maybe even heavier weights would have solved the problem. Best thing is to do a couple of practice prints- carefully coating the plate and to figure out how long you need to dry the print before peeling the paper off the plate.

Here is a closeup of the same print. I printed the cow two times, so this is a different print compared to the one that you see in the video.

For another variation for the adventurous printers out there, you can also print on just the targel without paper. Do all the steps just as above, but paint a slightly thicker coat of targel on top. Leave the paper and weights off the plate and just let it airdry. When the targel is dry, you can peel the skin off the plate, with your printing ink attached to it. Now you have a transparent, stretchy print, that you can let dry like that, you can stretch it over things or distort it in other ways. Margaret has done so in some of her works, you can see an example here.

Troubleshooting.

If you get spots in your print after you peel it off, try adjusting these things:

Your targel had not dried yet. Clean off any targel remains from your plate and start again and let your plate dry longer. Your paper and plate should separate fairly easily when you peel them apart -always be careful around the edges.

You did not cover your plate evenly with the clear etching ink and the acrylic got stuck to your plate instead of the paper. Clean plate, ink your plate again and be careful to cover the whole plate evenly.

You did not cover cover the plate evenly with targel, and some of the ink remains on your plate. Clean plate, ink your plate again and be careful to cover the whole plate with an even coat of gel. Be careful not to gob it on too thick either.

There was an air bubble in between your paper and plate. Smooth paper on the plate starting from one edge.

I hope this posting has been interesting for you. If you get a chance to try it, I'd be happy to post some pictures or experiences from others as well. Or if you have a problem that needs solving, let me know. Next post, we'll look at my latest small engraving. :)

Studio, Exhibition and Interview

I finally got a chance to sit down and write from in between illustrating and running the house. While I have been busy with my nose buried in the studio every week, my hedgehog engraving has been popular in Etsy Treasuries, here are a couple for you to see. They are all quite beautiful.

NEWS: My work is currently up in the real world at the Washington State Convention Center. The exhibition is titled PS 5 and it features prints by South Puget Sound artists Dorothy McQuistion, Bill Colby, Janet Marcavage, Ann Johnston-Schuster and me. The exhibition runs through Oct 23rd, so you have plenty of time to go see it. The address for the convention center is: Level 2 South Galleria, 800 Convention Place, Seattle, WA. Hours are 7am-10pm.

The other bit of news is that my work and an interview are also featured on the Printsy Blog. Its quite a fun little interview with pictures of prints for sale in my shop.

I love to browse the other entries on the blog on my free time. The whole site is devoted to printmakers who are on Etsy and the articles feature work from one end of the spectrum to the other. It is wonderful and encouraging to see how many talented printmakers are selling work in alternative venues outside of the traditional gallery system. I like galleries, but with the constant moving, I find it easier to sell online and though exhibitions.

Mentioned in the previous posts was that I had carved a place to work in our new house. My husband is the greatest, and let me take up half of our living room to use as a studio, with flat file, presses and equipment. Otherwise it would have had to go up two narrow flights of stairs, to the third floor, which was not the greatest option. I bought this white and orange retro bureau (see below) from a yard sale, that has a shelf that folds down to a writing table. It works perfectly in a small space to paint on. I have given myself a time limit to finish all the rest of the illustrations in the next two weeks. I have been painting or drawing just about every day for a couple of weeks now, and am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I only have 5 images to draw and paint.

So to illuminate the process, I took some pictures. When working on a book illustration with a character, you want it to look the same thoughout the book. Being towards the end of the book, I have a set way of painting the little wren that makes it much easier than in the beginning, when I was just getting to know the her. When working, the whole place looks like a big mess, since I spread other finished illustrations on the table next to me with the manuscript and reference images, so I can constantly look over to make sure colors look the same thoughout. I tidied it up for the picture a little bit...

I start by sketching on any sheet of paper that I have handy- normally I do have something better than a notebook though (but you never know when inspiration strikes). Here is a sketch for a 1/3 page illustration of the little wren sitting in her nest. I normally just keep drawing over and refining the sketch until it is they way that I want the final illustration to look. Then I trace the main lines on watercolor paper and start painting away.

How do I know what to draw for the book? I have gone over the manuscript with the author in the beginning. We talked about color themes, how she envisions the illustrations and what her expectations were. The text was also divided up to fit 1/4 - 1 page illustrations. The author had a general idea of what she wanted me to draw for each one but was open to suggestions and input from me. Throughout the process as I finished images, I sent them to her for approval. Sometimes I made suggestions on how to adjust the illustrations and sometimes she had some changes to make. So it has been a flexible process as we go along. The author I am working with is wonderful- she gives me a lot of freedom to interpret and if needed change the illustrations around. Working with such a great partner also makes me want to paint even better and make the book look absolutely beautiful. I can't wait for it to actually be finished.

I am painting borders for each page of the book. Below you can see how the finished nest illustration will look set on a page. The text is obviously missing, but it will go on the top and if needed slightly around the illustration.

Here is the beginning of another image. On the left you can see the manuscript with a quick sketch of my idea on it. The sketch for the illustration is in the middle. I just use watercolors to paint with and normally use a dark outline around the basic forms on the page.

Here is the little wren singing. I decided to flip her facing the other way to make her look more natural in the layout of the pages.

After I am done with the illustrations, they will all be scanned in with a high resolution. Then they'll be set within the borders. Everything will be imported to Adobe InDesign to put the illustrations together with the text and then the book will be ready for publishing! It has been a very exciting process, and I will keep you posted on when the book is ready. I don't want to give out too much information before it is all done.

So now you know how I work, not very glamorous, but it works and I would not want to do anything else! Next time I'll share a small intaglio printmaking tip from Dan Welden.

Interview with Abigail Anderson

It is not often that I come across a new technique and a fresh point of view in printmaking. If anywhere, the SGC and MAPC conferences are great events to attend if have been lacking inspiration lately. Abigail Anderson's artwork caught my eye at the last MAPC Conference and I just had to share it with you. It's been an interview long promised, so I hope you will be as inspired as I was when I met her.

Abigail Woods Anderson is a Minneapolis- based artist and educator. She received her BA from St Olaf College in 1999 and currently works with the Walker Art Center's department of education and community programs. Abigail is also an instructor and member of the artist cooperative at Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) and made her curatorial debut there at the Lerner Binder Gallery this spring (a multidisciplinary exhibition What Follows What Came Before).

I was drawn to her work because of the detail that she was able to get with photopolymerplates and her hand drawn negatives. Here is what Abigail had to say about her technique: "What's striking about letterpress is that it is at once anachronistic and in vogue. Artists working in letterpress have a vast array of technologies (two millenia) at their disposal. What sets my technique apart from most contemporary letterpress practitioners is my preference for handmade, rather than digitally derived, negatievs to generate photopolymer plates. I thrive off the direct mark-making and problem solving ingenuity of DIY processes and analog materials. Occasinally, specific projects necessitate the facsimile quality that a computer affords, but usually my process is more akin to drawing and painting."

Degrees, detail

Abigail was great in sharing how she makes her negatives. Her basic technique is to paint a solid surface of India Ink with a foam brish on acetate and let it dry. Then you can use the scratching tool of your choice (x-acto knife, etching needle, sandpaper, wire brush, etc.) After you make the drawing you can expose your plate the way you normally would. I'd suggest making a couple of trial plates to get the exposure right.

Now, here is an image of one of Abigails negatives. You can see how much detail and fine lines she has. That is what was so mind blowing to me. I asked her what the trick is to keep the fine lines from washing away after exposure. Her reply was to keep the highly detailed areas close together, and then have the rest of the area open. If there was one little mark in the middle of a large open area, then it would wash away, but having the lines so close together keeps them "safe".

I asked Abigail to share some more of herself and her work with us:

How/when did you start letterpress?

I confess- I had no idea what letterpress meant when I signed up for a workshop at the MCBA in 2008. My first instructor was Allison Chapman and my first projects were entirely engrossing and overly ambitious. So I was compelled to continue coursework at MCBA by taking classes in advanced letterpress and polymer plate making. I knew I had the letterpress obsession once I noticed myself laying awake at night concocting letterpress projects. So, to satiate this creative impulse, I joined MCBA's Artist Cooperative which consists of artists making independently driven work in the book arts disciplines- papermaking, printmaking and book binding. In exchange for monthly dues, we get a host of benefits, not least which is access to MCBA's studio space and equipment.

Re-Embroidered II, letterpress, 7"x7", print above, detail below

For someone who has not seen your work, how would you explain it?

I think my artwork has a certain "telescoping inward" quality. While subjects vary, my prints and paintings consistently are small scale and highly detailed. The notion of making visual riddles- compositions held together by some kind of tension or enigma- has held my attention recently.

Strange Loop is a good example. I developed a resource about this painting that is a hybrid of an artist statement and statement of influence. Artist voice/Artist Choice was a project proposed and supported by my colleagues at the Walker, mnartists.org and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. It invites artists to discuss their own work in relation to resources held by the Walker and/or Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Shelf Fungus, letterpress & chine colle, 4"x2.5"

Do you work in any other media than polymerplates?

While I only discovered letterpress about three years ago, I discovered love for printmaking about 12 years ago in a college intaglio class. But graduating college meant saying farewell to a sophisticated studio. I scaled back to art forms that could be accomplished in a small apartment. For several years I worked in pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache. Now that I am invested in printmaking, those direct media still interest me but are on the back burner. Within the medium of letterpress, I use primarily polymer plate, but occasionally employ metal type.

Where do you get your inspiration from for themes and colors? Do you always work with nature themes?

I often work with nature themes, but over the years my approach has edged a bit more towards abstraction. Recently I completed two works relating to mathematical principles. {2, 3, 5, 7, ... 2203, 2207} and {2, 3, 5, 7, ... 1789, 1801} are meditations on the prime number sequence. These prints reference the work of mathematicians Stanislaw Ulam and Charles Sacks.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea, letterpress, detail above and print below

Any great plans for the future?

To be fair, this is less of a plan and more of an ambition, but I'd like to edition an artist book about water bears. Also (totally unrelated) this summer I've got what I'm calling my "Gutenberg gig". On Spetember 24-25 I will be demonstrating the use of a Gutenberg replica press at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

Other exciting things? This summer I have an experimental outdoors project called Open Phenology (science of how and when living things change over the seasons). I engage the public every friday in a meandering walk and conversation during which we identify species, hypothesize about our observations and share knowledge. Then I use a blog to keep records of our phenological observations (with a good dose of musings and non-authoritative content). Open Phenology is my contribution to the Walker Art Center's Open Field and Field Office. It's part of my bigger fascination with citizen science and the perils and powers of inviting non-scientists to be collaborators in scientific pursuits.

I fell in love with your prints, do you have any for sale?

My art is available at the Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis.

Minuend, letterpress, 8.5"x5", detail above and print below

Thanks so much for sharing Abigail!

Studio and Two Shows

The studio has been somewhat taking shape, there is still a lot of organizing to do. I will get a shelving system in August that I will be able to put a lot of my things in, but until then, it will be messy. I am going to try to get it organized, since I need to get going on finishing up illustrations for a book and start work on new projects. The image is a photo collage, sort of a 360degree view of my space. I just need some more space in the form of shelving to be organized and use the space for printing, drawing, watercolor, and design work...

My work is featured in two shows, one in Helsinki and one in Seattle. The one in Helsinki is already up at Galleria G, Pieni Roobertinkatu 10.

"Uusi Lehti- Uutta Taidegrafiikkaa"

29.june.-22.july.2011

Mon-fri 11am-5pm, sat-sun closed

The popular summer members exhibition has new work from both well known and new graphic artists. Here are a couple of overviews of the gallery area. This is the gallery for the finnish graphic artists society, and you will find a wonderful large collection of prints to browse through. If you are not in Helsinki at the moment, many of the artists works can be viewed online, here is the english version link. You can view works either in Sales Collection or Artists.

These were just a few of my favorites:

Ritve-Liisa Virtanen, Bear Your Cross I, 2011, Screenprint, beeswax, collage

Pia Kousi, From the series: Topsy-turvy-photo-stereo-synthet, 2010, pigment on film, plexi

Maija Lavia, Puun Kosketus II (Touch of the Tree II), 2011, pigmentprint

Kirsi Neuvonen, Matkakertomuksia: Sininen Portti (Travel stories: Blue Gate), 2011, etching, aquatint, copyetching (not sure what that technique is)

The other exhibition will take place at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, 800 Convention Place, Seattle, WA. The exhibition is installed on July 15th, so you can stop by to see the work after that. If I remember correctly off the top of my head the show is up for at least two months.

"PS 5" features five Puget Sound printmakers work: Bill Colby, Dorothy McQuistion, Janet Marcavage, Ann Johnston-Schuster and Mirka Hokkanen. I hope to get some photos from someone when the show is up to post those as well.

Next time we'll look at some illustrations. Until then, have a great day!