Making “The Great Library”, Part 2

The Inside Continued – Editioning

In last week’s post I had made it as far as a successful proof for the inside of my book object “The Great Library of Alexandria”. You would think that a successful proof would mean that things were sorted, but as soon as I tried to make an edition of the drypoint, I had problems.

As I’ve said before, I’m not experienced in intaglio printmaking, and with a drypoint especially, there is quite a bit of lee-way in how you wipe back the ink. In case you’re not clear, a drypoint works like this.

What is a drypoint exactly? 

* you take a plate (traditionally copper, but also used are zinc, perspex, other plastics and even illustration board coated with wood varnish, as I wrote here)

* and a pointed scribe of some sort (even a nail can be used at a pinch)

* and you draw, creating “a burr” or a raised edge on the plate. It is this which catches the ink for printing in addition to the line you have scribed.

Once your image is done, you cover the plate with ink and wipe it back with tarlatan (a coarsely woven fabric traditionally used by printmakers) using circular movements. Working this way forces the ink down into the line and  burr, while removing it from the surface.

When you print a drypoint, you achieve a very particular type of line. One that to me, is very beautiful. It is soft and fuzzy, yet rich and dark. And the burr is essential to that mark.

The Great Library of Alexandria (detail)

You can imagine that the burr is very fragile, even more so with perspex than say copper. So, as I tried to make my edition of about 12, I was wiping very carefully and also trying to replicate the original plate tone, which had contributed so much to the first proof.

After three or four attempts, none of which were usable, I began to realize that my plate might not last the edition. What to do? The plate was quite large, I didn’t want to start from scratch (no pun intended!).

Digital BFK Rives?

I knew that there is now a digital BFK Rives, produced by Canson. I wondered what the paper was really like, and whether it would be possible to reproduce a scan of the artists proof using it. I decided it was worth a try, and then I remembered that a while ago I bought a Canson inkjet paper sample pack. When I checked, there was a sample of the BFK Rives in the pack, so I downloaded the *free ICC profiles from Canson, pressed print and crossed my fingers.

I was actually stunned by the quality. I had expected to feel that it would be a major compromise to work this way, but in the end, it was such a practical solution for me. I love to work with my hands, and a mouse or even a graphics tablet can never be the same to me. Yet, so often I come up against my practical limitations, and am physically unable to create even a small edition like this without exhausting myself. It seems to me that making the original by hand and editioning it digitally is a good compromise.

*Using free ICC Profiles

Free ICC profiles can be downloaded from the websites of the paper manufacturers. If you’ve bought a fine art quality inkjet paper but found the colours hugely different from the colours on your monitor, using the ICC profile may help. I am planning to write a post about what profiles can and can’t do for you, and how to use them in the next month or so.

Making “The Great Library”, Part 1: Inside

From my first reading of the Art & Lies extract by Jeanette Winterson, I wanted to depict the boys in their eyries.

Initially, I planned to make a varied edition of altered books and I progressed as far as buying Condensed Readers Digest books in sufficient numbers, before I realized the difficulty of hand-carving hundreds of pages over and over to make the edition. Fortunately, another structure came to mind.

The Structure

At Ed Hutchins’ Single Sheet Structures workshop, a couple of years ago, I learned about the story box. It’s a simple structure that can be very effective when it supports the concept, and in this case it was perfect. With the image of the eyries in my head, I plunged into working on the inside of the box.

Inside

For this edition, I really wanted the warmth of a hand-pulled print, despite having more experience with digital printmaking. Having only made a couple of etchings before, I chose to do the inside image of the library as a drypoint on a Perspex (acrylic) plate, 30cm x 42cm. I did not want to make a large acid-etched plate in case it wasn’t successful.

Below you can see the plate now.

To inscribe it I used two drypoint tools, which you can see too.The one with the wooden shaft is an inexpensive diamond point from Dick Blick. The diamond makes an incredible difference in the pressure you have to apply. I’m not sure whether this particular tool will last very long, but if not I’ll certainly be replacing it with another diamond point. If anyone has a favourite tool for drypoint they recommend, please do let me know.

Digital Background

I found this lovely photo (above) of the book stacks at the British Library by Steve Cadman on flickr. It was the inspiration for the colours I initially prepared for the background of my print, using acrylic inks (below left).

Right: In progress, showing lightened areas in two places

I scanned the background and planned to create areas where the eyries would be positioned using the “lighting effects” in Photoshop. Obviously, this darkens those areas of the print that you haven’t chosen to be “lightened”.

In case you haven’t used this, you just go to:

Filter>Render>Lighting Effects.

There are a lot of options, but a good place to start is with either Omni or Spotlight (found in the Light Type window). From there you can play about with intensity and narrow or wide focus. It maybe useful to adjust the “exposure” and/or “ambience”, which can be found under Properties. I’ve found these to be the most fundamental controls to achieving simple but effective lighting effects. Beyond that, you can spend hours playing to see what can be done.

Combining the Digital and Drypoint Prints

In total I created five “lightened eyries”, which showed up quite nicely, but the background was now looking rather dark and dull. I altered the saturation and colour balance until the background printed on the Rives BFK printmaking paper to my taste. As this isn’t a paper for inkjet printing, there aren’t any colour profiles online, so I had to make numerous small test prints on the actual paper in order to see the colours.

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Left is the final background, as the file appears on-screen. Right, a scan of the artists’ proof (drypoint over digital background on Rives BFK).

More next time!

New book: sneaky peek

 

Mia, all tucked up

It’s been a long slow week in our household as we all (IT, me and the cat) spent a lot of time sleeping. IT and I have been trying to recover from our colds and Mia, well she’s usually happy to join us in amongst the blankets whenever she gets the chance.

I was quite pleased with myself for just accepting the situation, not fighting and pushing myself, despite the fact that the deadline for sending our Book Art Object books off to Ronnie is this week.

If you’ve read Michael Nobb’s blog,  Sustainably Creative, you might know his approach to slowly moving creative projects forward, with tiny work periods each day (e.g. 20 minutes). I’ve been keeping this in mind this week and amazingly the book is actually getting there!

 

So below is the first sneaky peek to give you a hint about my book for round 2 of Book Art Object. When the whole edition is finished (I’m planning 10-12) I’ll write some posts about each step of the process.

 

But for now, this is all!

(drypoint on archival inkjet background)

Drypoint: Using cardboard and perspex plates

 

Last week I showed you how I made the covers for the altered book I’m working on for “Books…Beyond Words”. This week I’d like to show you how the next stage is coming. I’ve been doing tests with drypoint using both card and Perspex (acrylic) for the plate.

For the book I need an image of a cocoon. I think I’ve mentioned (just a few times!) how much I want to learn etching, but the trouble is I have a few projects on-the-go, and a personal (exciting!) deadline of mid-May (more later!!!). I can foresee that a number of attempts might be needed before I can etch to my satisfaction!

Then this article from Nontoxic Print.com arrived in my inbox, showing me the way. I made the decision to try drypoint, also an intaglio print method, but a direct one, and therefore rather more straight forward than etching.

In the article Jenny Robinson discusses how she makes her large (e.g. 38” x 23”) drypoint monoprints using illustration board as her plate. She applies a thin coat of wood varnish and then treats the plate as she would any other drypoint.

With the high (and increasing) cost of copper and zinc, I thought this was definitely worth a try. As Robinson notes, cheaper materials provide the artist with more freedom to experiment, because you feel as if you can throw away something that hasn’t worked – and artistic freedom is always good, in my book!

Another cheap material that is often used for drypoint plates is plastic. I’ve heard of people trying virtually any type. Actually my kitchen chopping mat has some interesting lines appearing on it, and I’m thinking of swiping it and inking it up, but first I need to buy a replacement for the kitchen. More common choices are mylar and perspex, so I decided to give perspex a try too.

Tools, ink, paper 

Apart from ink and paper, this photo shows everything I used. For paper I used two different Japanese papers in buff, one a medium kozo and the other with a little more texture.

I compared two inks, an oil-based etching ink from Graphic Chemical and a water-based one from Akua. The second ink was self-mixed using transparent intaglio base and the Akua Kolors, rather than the pre-mixed intaglio inks that are available. It really needed the addition of some thickener, which I didn’t have (but now do).

Tests & Results

1) Initially I began testing with tools that I had on hand – an etching needle (above – yellow handle) which I had used before for this my only previous drypoint (plate: perspex).

I knew I would want some tone as well as line in this print. I don’t own a roulette, the tool often used for achieving tone. In the article, Jenny Robinson talked about using carborundum, but the art store was out of stock. Initially, I decided to test some dry pumice (in the Matisse jar above) applied with acrylic gel.

The result wasn’t bad, but the tone is more in the style of a collagraph, and that isn’t the look I am after.

2) Next I inked the plate with my self-mixed Akua. The ink was much softer and the textural effect of the pumice is lessened (pardon the shadow that’s come through on the scan).

I wasn’t happy with the tone alone, and tried sketching in some detail in pencil.

3) I decided to add more line detail to the plate using an engraving attachment on the Dremel. I also tried wiping more lightly, so that more ink would remain on the plate.

I did quite like this result, but I felt the image now had a “man-made/machine” look to it. It’s an interesting effect, but I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted for the book.

Here’s the plate (on the right) and the print again, this time using Akua ink. You can see I started experimenting with the Dremel’s mark-making abilities.

4) I wanted to test the Dremel further and decided to use line to achieve tone, a traditional drypoint/engraving technique. The plate here is perspex for the first time.

The result was a very controlled and neat image, almost illustrative.

5) At this stage I made another trip to the art store and decided to splash out on a “proper” drypoint tool (you can see it in the photo under Tools). I was pining for that special soft line that you can achieve when your tool lifts a burr from the plate. It is this that holds the ink and gives the drypoint its characteristic “look”.

And there it is over on the right side. All those lovely lines! I’ve finally worked it out!

Still no carborundum at the art store, so I bought some Golden fine pumice gel, which you can see holds the ink quite beautifully. There are also tests with three different grades of sandpaper (150, 280 and 400 – reversed).

6) So finally I tried with my new scribe on a cardboard plate with the oil-based ink. I’m still working on my wiping technique, but this print is the best result so far.

Playing With Drypoint

A couple of years ago I did a 6 week online printmaking course and learnt an at-home method of creating a drypoint print. I absolutely love intaglio prints and with the acquisition of a cheap second-hand pasta machine, this course claimed they were a possibility. At the time I tested it out and it seemed to work reasonably well, so I decided to trial the method again.

Using a perspex plate and an etching needle I made an image based on this photo (the one on the right). Below is the outcome on kozo paper and you can see two different inkings on watercolour paper here.



Last week I took the plate along to the class I mentioned I am attending at Studio West End. One of the teachers Wim de Vos is a printmaker and he showed me the correct way to ink up the plate and then we printed it on Arches Velin (proper printmaking paper) with the etching press. You can certainly see the difference (below) but I still quite like the result the pasta press gives - it is softer, with less detail for sure, but that can be nice in the right work.



Following on from this little venture in to printmaking, this week I am going to try something I've wanted to explore for years....etching. Stay posted!