Modifying Photopolymerplates with Acrylic Media

The moving day is inching closer by the hour. Moving trucks are rolling in first thing on Monday, and I have been organizing our house and the studio for weeks now. I have a couple of last minute things to complete before we head out. A couple of people are coming over tomorrow for a last minute photopolymer class and there are 6 huge panels that need to be finished up for a church commission. I have been taking some progress photos, and will post those after this moving madness is over.

Until then, I am pleased to feature a great article by Australian print-maker Annie Day. She has been a practicing artist since 1974, and is a passionate advocate of safer, healthier and more environmentally friendly printmaking techniques. A short plug- Annie and her sister Robin Ezra are teaching an exciting class in Florence, Italy, this summer. The 60 hour class covers the following safer printmaking techniques: waterless lithography, drypoint, monotype and collography. The class will be held at the world famous printmaking studio, Il Bisonte, where artists such as Picasso, Annigoni and Moore have worked. The workshop is suitable for any level of experience- you can find more information about it at their website here. I would love to go and take this class, the setting is ideal. (Maybe next year, since I'll be living a lot closer!)


Modifying Photopolymerplates with Acrylic Media by Annie Day

Less than perfect polymerplates can be readily rectified by modifying the plate surface using acrylic media. A small section of the plate can be transformed, as in the example "Chamellia"; of for a more complete overhaul, the original plate may be covered in gesso and reworked.

Camellia before and after

The original plate was overexposed resulting in a loss of contrast between foreground and background (see before). This was easily recovered however, by adding pastel primer to the plate in the areas where more ink was required, resulting in a darker final print with better contrast (see after).

Method

-Wash the plate first, this will help the acrylic media to form a good bond with the surface. Clean the ink off the plate with vegetable oil, then using soft brush or cleaning mitt and a little detergent with water gently work the surface until all ink and greasiness is removed, rinse and dry with towel. Surface is now ready to apply acrylic media.

-Use various acrylic media: gesso, pastel primer, acrylic varnish, PVC glue, and gel medium for example. Art suppliers carry a huge range of these mediums and you may already have a few types.

-Carborundum or ground pumice mixed with or sprinkled onto gesso or PVC glue will give a finish with "tooth" for darker areas similar to the pastel primer used above in Chamellia.

- The medium can be painted, applied with palette knife or other implement and drawn into to create lines and textures.

- The surface can be built up by gluing a variety of low relief textural materials- such as paper or fabric using PVC glue, seal the surface with watered gesso or varnish.

-Once the desired finish is achieved, dry the plate thoroughly with a hairdryer or airdry over night at room temperature. To speed up the process use an oven at very low temperature, 50-60 Celsius, no higher or the plate may dry out too much and crack. The plate must be completely dry before inking to avoid paper sticking during printing.

- Apply ink with a short stiff brush, wipe with a small flat piece of tarlatan and finish with paper wipe. Buy cheap flat bristle brushes and cut bristles with scissors.

Plate being modified with pastel primer and gesso

Clear pastel primer was added for darker areas, and gesso thinned with water painted over the leaves.

Cicada

The sky in the print to the right was lightened using gloss varnish on the plate.
This print after was created after a visit to the Northern Territory, Australia, it tells the story of the great Rainbow serpent, Boulong, who lived in a deep waterhole, at Nitmiluk- named after the song of the cicadas.

Wash the plate with a soft brush or cleaning mitt in water to clean thoroughly. Gloss varnish, thinned with water, applied to sky areas to lighten. Keep the print nearby while you work and refer to areas that need change.

Fossil Fish

Before and after

Plate showing tissue glued to the surface with some thinned gesso and gloss varnish added over the paper. The fossil fish, Clibming Galaxis- live today in small pockets around the world. The fish has been in existence for millions of years. They are found in tiny streams leading to Manly Dam near my home.

The fish plate was too dark. I covered the background in PVC glue and attached tissue paper. A thin coat of gesso and thinned gloss medium were applied to the plate. In retrospect, the paper layer might have been more succesful if I had used crushed or textured paper and added gesso applied with palette knife for more interesting textural effects.

Notes:
- Art Spectrum Colourfix pastel primer was originally designed for coating surfaces in preparation for pastel drawing, but is a great medium for our puroses as it holds ink where the artist needs darker areas to print.

-Try experimenting with various acrylic media and pasting paper and textiles etc. The plate becomes a collagraph when you add media to the surface.

- Sometimes it is difficult to find where you need to apply the medium. Outline areas you are modifying in ballpoint pen. It makes it easier to see and will not show up in the final print.

Linocut Registration Jig

I am sitting at La Familia Gallery in Seattle today, enjoying the sunshine through the window and the people passing through. As I have time to sit, I figured why not write. I have been promising the tell you about the registration jig for linocuts on my little proofing press, so here's the scoop.
The whole thing started out, when I printed a larger reduction cut and needed good registration for the two colors. I glued and taped the above cardboard registration together after looking at some different ways of registering on proofing and iron hand presses. I realized about 2/3 way through printing the first color that every time when I bumped my paper against the registration strip it moved a little. So all the prints until that point had a slightly different registration. Getting the second color printed on the same spot on those prints was pretty much impossible, hence a large amount of messed up prints. Note to self, let glue dry completely before using things for registration.

So- I needed something more permanent, than cardboard, glue and masking tape. Carving unmounted linoleum is also more comfortable (and cheaper) for me, so I wanted the registration to work for unmounted linoluem blocks. I started off with a piece of 3/4" thick plywood for the base for the registration jig. On top of it, I mounted a piece of mylar with 3M spray adhesive (great stuff). You can see the edges of the shiny mylar in the pictures since it was not as big as the piece of wood. I wanted the mylar on the wood to make it easier to keep clean and to be able to reuse the jig for a long time for different blocks. You can see on the press, I still had to shimmy the plywood higher with some cardboard (I used the backer boards from pads of newsprint).

After that I cut a piece of 1/8" plexi to cover the plywood. I made the plexi larger to accommodate larger sheets of paper and to make it easier to grab the top and flip it up when printing. The plexi also has a window cut into it so that it will drop down around the linoblocks nicely. The opening size depends on how large blocks you want to be printing and how much extra paper you want around your prints. I normally print about 2" borders on my prints, so the plexi frame is about 1 1/2"-3" thick all around.

Next thing was to get a piano hinge and cut it to the right length. I shaved a hair off the end of the plywood so that the plexi would lie flat after the hinge was attached. I used some epoxy glue and screws to attach the hinge to the plexi. The screws were longer and I cut the tips off with a dremel, after it was all put together. The whole thing looks a little ugly on the top, but it works, and so far has not broken down on me, 7 editions later.

Here are just a couple of closeup shots of the end. Sometimes it's helpful to have pictures from a couple of different angles...

Here is the jig being used. When printing multiple blocks, I would adhere them to the jig with a quick spritz of spray adhesive to the back of my linoblock, just enough to keep it in place but easily removable when I was done printing. For multiple colors, I drew around the block on the mylar with a sharpie so it could be placed in the exact same spot when I was done carving the second color. The plexi had a strip of cardboard taped to it. Both the cardboard and paper had center marks, so that paper could be aligned the same every time.

When rolling up with ink I flip the plexi up and rest it over the press roller. For printing, I flip it down to use the registration on it. Instead of wool felts to print, I use a rubber "felt" thats a free recycle from a local offset printing place. To help visualize, I have posted a video about printing reduction cuts. (See very bottom of blog post.)

Hope you have enjoyed this post, if you have other ideas for registration or questions, please write to me. I would love to hear from ya! Coming next is an interview with some one I met at the MAPC conference, I was very excited about her technique for polymerplates, and she agreed to share her work with us.

Two etching techniques and Pronto plate results

Good day to you! I am feeling great today after my surgery. I have not even needed to take a pain killer yet! Praises to God for that. I know a lot of people have been praying for me, and I think it has really helped.

Today is the first day of my letterpress class, and as I had written before, I wanted to blog about my previous one before I jump into the next one. I also taught an acrylic plate litho class over the weekend, and we had great results with different media.

So at the nontoxic printmaking class we also used two different soft grounds. The first one was made by using Graphic Chemical water based relief ink- Crimson Red #1661 and Lascaux Transparentlack #2060. The transparentlack was added to make the ink dry quicker on the plate- don't use too much of it or it will dry too quickly. We mixed in ratio of 1 part transparentlack and 3 parts red ink. There are some interesting comments on the technique in the Graphic Chemical Bulletin board.

Below- we were using a thin aluminum plate from an offset litho place as a rolling out surface. A fun idea.

below- here is the teacher rolling out the red base on the plate. There is a limited time to work on this, so I would not go out to lunch in the middle of all this. After the ink has been rolled out, let it dry slightly, just a couple of minutes, and then roll it though the press with what ever you were going to use on your soft ground. Tip- to keep backing paper around your feather or other material, sticking down to the softground, slightly oil a piece of mylar and set it over the plate and softground materials before running through the press. That way no extra soft ground gets picked up. For the same problem you can also just cover the areas up with the johnson hardground by hand after you ran it through the press.

I did some pieces of moss and leaves for my soft ground try out. The dark areas on my plates are aquatint that was sprayed to keep some of the more open areas from completely open biting.

You can also use the red ground as a regular etching resist hard ground. After rolling it out, dry it on a hot plate for about 20 min. It will stay flexible enough for a little while (day or so) so you could just draw through it with you etching needle. I like this option, because this ground stays on pretty well, and you don't have to be as careful with it as you have to with the johnson hardgrounds. The result looks much like a traditional line etching with asphaltum hard ground.

The second soft ground we did was mixing 3 parts Graphic Chemical water based ink Black #1659 and 1 part Lascaux Transparentlack #2060. This works similar to the red ink soft ground, but the ink granules are more coarse. You can either roll the ground on and then manipulate it with distilled water or then mix it with dist. water in little cups for several "strengths" to paint with directly on the plate. The different thicknesses of ground will let the ferric chloride bite though at different lengths of time. We used an Edinburg etch for all the etching in the class. Below is an example of a plate that we were working with the black ground - rolling it on and painting it with water ground mixture.

I like the possibility of some really nice tousche type washes with these grounds. You can use the red ground in the same way as the black. After rolling the red ground on you can use distilled water, which will separate the ink particles. The red will give you a finer wash and the black a coarser wash. You can also use sticks, q-tips and different type of brushes to manipulate the ground. If you are using the red ink just on its own without the transparentlack, you can get a stepped aquatint where the lighter applied areas will etch through first and thicker applied areas etching last. Below some pictures of us mixing the grounds and painting on them.

Here is a nice example of the soft ground wash etched on a plate. The plate, the print and a closeup:

I also found another link for floorwax etching ground using Future-floor polish. It can be found here.

Whew, are you still ready for some more information? Here are some images from the plastic plate lithography I taught over the past weekend. I had previously used Z-Acryl plates, and this time I had ordered some Pronto plates. I wanted to see what the differences were. I was also interested in trying this out, since from my research I had figured that crayon drawings might work better on these plates.

We were able to try out several techniques. One of the students brought in her drawing and she just ran over to Office Max to get that xeroxed on to a plate. Her prints turned out great, exactly like her original drawing was. Here are a couple of pictures of that.

Above- proofing on the press.

below- the plate itself and below that the print from it.

Closeups of both.

I was really excited to try what happened when we used crayons on this material. I read that Korn's litho crayon #4 works best, so I had some of those ready on hand. One of the students made a drawing with it. To our horror as soon as we wiped the plate wet, the crayon washed right off. But to our suprise, the crayon had left an oily residue, that picked up ink as we rolled it up. We only had time to proof it twice, and the results were very interestng. I think if we would have rolled it up a little more, it would have rolled up quite nicely. So I was very encouraged by the results! Drawing with crayons on the Z-Acryl plates in the past did not seem to work at all. The ink would pick up when rolling, and leave behind nothing. Another 2 things I liked better with the pronto plates, was the there is no wrong or right side and that it is more translucent. Having it more translucent makes it easier to work with for beginning students I think, if they need to trace their drawings.

Here is a proof of a horse drawn quickly with a ball point pen. This is a pretty foolproof media to use on the plates.

That was quite a long post, but I'm glad I got to report on all the exciting things I've discovered in the last couple of days and months. Hope you enjoyed it, letterpress stuff to follow next.

God given time to Blog

I ended up getting in on a cancelled time this morning and having my two lower wisdom teeth removed. Since I am couch-stuck for a couple of days, I have time to sit and blog now! I thought I would be feeling quite a lot worse and had prepared to just watch movies, but I'm feeling way better than what I thought so here I am.

I feel like a hamster right now with some very chubby cheeks... Yeah, I'm not puffing them up or anything in that picture.

I wanted to share exciting printing results from a recent polymerplate and linocut class I taught, and share some of the info from the nontoxic intaglio class. Might have to break it up into two posts...

So I have been working with a couple of students here and there. It is always exciting when we come up with new ideas and when prints turn out beautifully. The smiles of students feeling accomplished always keep me motivated to teach class. While doing some printing of linocuts with a friend on Friday, we came up with a "new" way of registering. it was new to me, even though it might not be new to you.

She had a two plate unmounted linoleum block that we wanted to print on my little etching press. So instead of having an L-shaped registration plate- or printing like an etching- we took a piece of mylar, drew the plate mark and paper edges on it. We taped some mat board on the edges for a paper guide. I guess the end result is a hybrid between Asian woodcut registration and etching registration. This seemed to work well for her, so I would be willing to try this again in the future when printing though an etching press.

above- linocut set on the registration sheet.

below- setting the paper over the top.

above- after running through the press, we left one edge caught under the roller, and brought the next plate (ready inked up) over to the press.

below- changing the plates out.

above- pulling the first proof is always very exciting!

below- finished print by Gail Kelly.

Going back in time to the class I took in Finland. We were taught 4 different types of nontoxic

grounds to use with ferric chloride. The first one we did was Johnson- floorwax hardground. Reading online, I don't know if they have that available in the US. Does anyone know about that? The hardground formula had 1 part floorwax and 1 part Golden Stop out. We would spread it on a copper plate that had been cleaned from all grease, and let it drip a while, and then we would heat it over a hotplate to set the ground completely. The heat helps the ground bond to the plate better.

Above- nook with tub of salt-vinegar solution and sink.

We were using two kinds of Johnson floor polishes that have different properties. The "shinewax" (direct translation from Finnish) flakes off slightly when you draw with a needle, so fine linework/hatching is out of the question but it will take longer etching times. The "endurance wax" we used straight out of the bottle, with out the stop out. It is more flexible and does not chip out when drawing through, but it will not take as long etching times. Because you are using it straight out of a bottle it was clear and hard to see what you were drawing, but if you mix a little bit of india ink in it, you should be ok. You can also coat it twice to make the etching time longer. I liked the second one better, because it was easier to draw though and I normally don't do long etching times anyways.

Above- nook to clean grounds off plates, we reuse the solution over and over again. At the end of they day, the solution was stored in the gallon jugs.

Below- 2 etching tanks, large vertical and small horizontal. We were using edinburgh etch so you could etch horizontal as well.

Note: make sure you are cleaning the plate thoroughly before coating it with the ground. We dipped our plates in a solution of:

1 part vinegar

1 part salt

3 parts water

After dipping through solution, rinse plate quickly and blot dry.

You can remove the grounds with a solution of 1.5dl washing soda crystals diluted in 1 liter of water.

We also used the floorwax for aquatint. 1 part johnson wax and 1 part Golden Stop out. Make sure as in the technique above your plate is completely clean before you coat it. To block out areas in between etchings, we were using the wax+stop out and the Golden Stop out. Make sure its dried out before you put it back in the bath.

I found at least two other websites that were talking about these materials: nontoxic printmaking by Friedhard Kiekeben and a slide presentation who I could not find an author for- they also cover the soft ground methods I'll talk about tomorrow.

I have a couple more techniques and polymer litho plate results to blog about, so up and away until tomorrow!

Three tips for Lincut Printing

Howdy folks! I have been having a long break, spending time in Finland with family and enjoying the summer. I made a little picture diary of things that I loved there. You can find it here. As far as intaglio printing goes I am out of commission until the semester starts back up again at TCC on Sept 28th. I was silly and left my materials in the studio, thinking I would not need them. That's ok though, it has given me time to make some linocuts.
Remember the age old game of telephone? As part of my new theme of animals conspiring against us, I am working on a linocut series of animals passing a message along to each other. I was trying to make them look a little like vintage illustrations. I don't know if it worked or not. Here are the first two I finished so far. It's supposed to be 9 little prints when it's done.

I was using the speedball watersoluble block printing ink to print the last prints. Since the plates were so small, I just hand burnished them. Below is my print setup at home. I have always had problems with this ink drying up and becoming gummy after about 10 prints. Since I am thrifty and don't want to throw out ink I paid for (I have 5 different colors of this stuff), this is the solution to work with it. I took my small atomizer bottle meant for watercolor painting and misted the rolled out ink surface lightly in between prints. That enabled me to print indefinitely with the ink. Also- don't squeeze out too much ink on the plate for rolling out at a time. I am still not crazy about these inks, they are watersoluble like watercolor even after at least 5 days after printing and drying. But because of the same reason, they are easy to use at home (which we are renting) for easy cleanup.

Tip #2: Linocuts curling up on you? If you work on smaller sizes, the plates always curl up after they are washed. Bigger ones flatten out with weight but not these ones. If you dry them in between phone books with a weight on it they will flatten back out. Here is a before after photos. Oops, the plate is different in the photo, but you get the point.

Below is a print that I was working for a comission. A friend wanted a print of a chickadee to give to her father for a birthday present. I figured that since it ties in with my other animal prints, I would make a whole edition of them. Here is where the tip #3 comes in (afterthoughts kill me). I tried to do some watercolor on top of the print (before I knew it would run) and of course it bled all over. I also printed them on Rives light weight since I was hand printing, so the paper warped a lot when it got wet. To fix these two problems, I had to get a little crafty.

I used Krylon crystal clear spray on the print and let it dry thoroughly. Then I added wheat paste to the watercolor to keep it from soaking in immediately. This helped me apply the color more evenly and kept the paper from wrinkling up. In the end, it turned out great. She loved it. I had to turn it in as soon as I got it done, so I don't have a picture right now, but I will color the other prints as well so we'll have a picture in a couple of days.

Hope those are some helpful hints to someone out there. Just chuggin' along here.