Combining techniques

I wanted to see if I could get a good spit bite print without using an aquatint on the plate first, so I etched a plate first to see if it caused the acid to run more in some places and bite deeper. this is the proof.

I’m not sure that it did.  

'Identity' with a spit bite plate.

Today I'm mainly showing a plate.

 

 I decided to use the same basic idea but to make a steel plate simply using a spit bite ( with no aquatint) . I love the plate which has resulted, but it doesn’t make a good print.
 

 

Zinc monotype

And this is the same plate- I was clearing up and decided to try combining it with some stencil shapes. The original 'intaglio' ink has gone and what is left is basically a relief print.

Zinc viscosity inked 3 and 4

And the same plate with different ink.

Zinc viscosity inked 1 and 2

These 3 prints were all made at the same time

 

 

 

 

Another 'identity' plate

This is a zinc plate I’ve made. I’ve used this image before making a rectangular plate in steel, but different metals give different results, and I often like to make square plates when I can. This is just the proof. I’ll ink it up in different ways later.

Getting better

I decided to use the reverse plate- the one where the body is filled in rather than created by negative space. This seems to have worked better as a viscosity print, possibly because the lines define the image better as an object than they do when it's the other way round. However you have to look closely- which is something I like, I like having to look closely to see the full picture.  

Too little information

I printed this plate as a second print- so I could use the ghost images from the previous printing. Sometimes it produces really good results- but perhaps not today. I can see the original etching, because I know where to look for it- not sure anybody viewing this for the first time c x would see it as anything more than an abstract collection of colours.

Too much information

I’ve made a mono print from one of the original ‘duality’ plates.  I think that in this the base image is rather too lost. Never mind, I’ll continue to experiment.

Duality

I made 2 printing plates which I’m showing the proofs of here. They originated in reading I’ve been doing for the ‘identity’ project and Descartes thoughts about the duality of the mind and the body.

I’m not particularly pleased with these, they are rather lifeless , but will use them as the base for viscosity prints to see if I can make something worthwhile from them.

Collograph Head

Today’s print is another colograph. I’ve used the same method as I used with the figure( ie sticky labels) to create a head. This time the background surface is more evident which adds to the interest of the print it makes.

A viscosity print

This is the figure colograph from yesterday's post  printed with coloured inks. I’m a big  fan of something called ‘viscosity printing’ as it gives a different- and totally unpredictable result every time. This print is quite indistinct- but I quite like that. oExpect to see quite a number of viscosity prints  in this blog.

Labels

I’m working on a project at the moment thinking about ‘identity’ . You have to start somewhere so I  decided to make a colograph as a starting point just to get me going.

We all have ‘labels’ , parent, child, colleague, friend, etc.  that define the identities people place upon us- and do I decided to make a plate out of labels- sticky labels in this case.

 

 

And yet another

And yet another bike shadow. (This is the last of these for a while as I feel the need to get back to something a bit more serious.)

And another

And here's another bike shadow

Back to the bikes

I enjoy making lino cuts- so decided to make a few more from the bike shadows- and have printed them again in yellow because it’s so bright and cheerful, and bright and cheerful is just what I need on these dark winter days. It makes me think of the summer.

Now for something completley different

Today I'm posting a series of prints I made on paper using a technique which is generally reserved for use on textiles. These prints are essentially monoprints on that each one is very slightly different. They are made using silk screen.  It’s a process which you can’t really control- so there’s a huge element of chance as to whether what you get is Ok or not.

And as a collograph

I made this colograph based on the same original image  from which I made the lithograph I posted yesterday. It’s hard to see the ‘image’ unless you know what  you are looking for, but I still think that it makes an interesting print.  

Lithograph

The print I’m posting today is a lithograph from plates I made a while ago.  I love lithography, it feels like magic when you roll the ink over the plate and it simply sticks to the image you have created. I know how the process works- but I prefer to think of it as magic.

Two prints for today

I’m posting 2 prints from a reduction lino cut today, mainly because one of them is a happy accident. The first is printed the way I intended

 

 

 

And the second I printed the second colour the wrong way round, but actually I think it still works.

Time for some colour

Too many black and white prints so far this year- I really like colour, so today I’m posting something brighter.  This one is a monoprint which I just did for the fun of it- no thought process behind it, not part of a bigger project- just because I felt like making a print.

Hardly there at all

The same plate and technique, which here has produced a really subtle print, something where the original etched figure is hardly visible.

The same, only different.

 

This is the same plate, printed in exactly the same way- but every time you make a print it can come out differently- that’s what I really like about printing, there’s an element of chance, of uncertainty, of  giving up control over the finished result.

In this print the roll which creates the ghost image is more visible ( the result of different viscocities of ink) and it has had a greater impact on other ink on the plate- a much more complex final print- which is the sort of result I am aiming for  at this time.  

Now for some fun

Having made some etched plates there are so many ways I can print them.

 

The one I’m posting here today is a very basic roll of colour over the plate which has been inked with brown, and already it looks different.

Unfortunately I'm having problems with my camera and its not picking up the details on the print as I would like so you can't really see the ghost print on the blank half of the plate. 

This is just a starting point, there are so many ways I can add colour and interest.  

The other way round

I’m still going to  do far more in terms of the way I print the plates I have posted already, but  I wanted to try out a plate where it is the space around the body which is removed, and the presence which is defined by its surrounding absence .

Obviously when you print a plate like this (unless you give it a relief roll of ink as I did with the plate from yesterday) this all flips, and it is the presence of ink on the surface which defines the absence which comprises the subject of the print.

Same plate, different print.

The thing with this plate, which is deeply etched, is that now it’s made I can print it in so many different ways.  Firstly I can print it as I might a relief print.

Reworking an idea as an etching.

Having decided that there is some mileage in the method of composition I have been using to make the basic image, I have made something similar as an etched steel plate.   There  is so much more I can do with an etched plate, so many more possibilities for printmaking.  So here is the print from the basic plate.

Same method, new plate.

There are things about the print I posted yesterday that I don’t like, mainly that it has ‘edges’ defining the outline of the face- so I decided to make another without them. I think the result is better.

 

 

 

Absence

Today’s print is something I have made for a project I’m working on which started from an awareness of ‘absence’ as something very ‘present’ in prints.  This is another linocut, I’ve simply rolled black ink over the surface to get an image, so what you ‘see’ is what has been removed and is absent from the block.  

 

Day 2

To be honest this is a bit of a cheat ( as I spent the day at the January sales and haven’t printed anything today) - but only in so much as it's not a 'new' print made in 2015, but it is a recent print , a linocut which I made based on the shadows which bikes cast on the ground. The predominance of yellow is a reference to the Tour de France which passed through Yorkshire (virtually at the end of the road) in the summer.  

Beginings

January 1^st seems as good a time as any to start this blog. I’ve seen others set themselves creative challenges for the New Year such as creating a piece of work every day. This seems a huge thing to do as some work takes a significant amount of time to make, but I think that it might be realistic to POST a new piece of work every day- so that’s what I’ll try to do.

As a painter and printer some techniques lend themselves to daily work better than others. In the bigger project I’m presently working on I’m making very large etchings, and as such it isn’t realistic to create a new one of these each day- but I often make monoprints, and creating these is more realistic I feel.

So here goes.