Here are a few photos and processes summarising the start of my printmaking journey…
It all began with a circle, triangle and square…
The beginning of cutting out with a craft knife and ruler.
My finished geometric sets.
Love this photo… playing with different compositions. Makes for a very interesting print in its own right.
Sealing the shapes with button polish – not forgetting the edges!
Once the button polish is dry, beginning the process of adding detail to a shape in each set with PVA glue…
Once the glue is dry, the surface pattern will create some beautiful relief prints.
Getting to grips with our printing equipment.. Firstly, from left to right, the blotting area – where paper is blotted dry between sheets of paper once it’s been soaked… in the middle, the sink for soaking the paper before printing and finally on the right, the tissue paper book for protecting finished prints whilst they dry.
Unchaining the etching press ready for printing.
The etching press in it’s raw state before setting up for printing.
All set up ready to begin work… To do this, the bed was extended fully to one end using the large wheel on the side. Once extended, 2 sometimes 3 blankets are positioned into the rollers, and the wheel is turned to engage the blankets into the rollers. The same process is repeated with two sheets of tissue paper. Once both the blankets and tissue paper are engaged within the rollers, one sheet of the tissue paper along with blankets is folded over the rollers, leaving one sheet of tissue paper on the bed of the press as can been seen in this photo.
Onto paper soaking… Run a sink of cold clean water and submerge the paper for 5 to 10 minutes. Whilst doing this process, it is always better to soak more paper than you think you’ll need… Just in case!
The ink. We used water-based ink, but oil based is also an option, and it can give a richer effect to the prints.
Preparing the inks… Applied to a raised glass frame using a paint stripping tool, its flexible blade allows the ink to be easily manipulated on the glass plate…
This process can be used to mix bespoke colours…
And apply the paint in a thin roller-friendly strip, so it can be easily applied to the roller, in a thin film…
Not like I did here, which is far to heavily applied… It may sound strange, but the sound was a giveaway – in this instance when the roller was ‘rolled’ you could hear the ink sticking, whereas when applied correctly, only a gentle ‘hissing whisper’ was heard when rolling!
Once the paper has been soaked for 5 to 10 minutes, remove from the water and wipe as much excess water from each sheet using your fingertips, then stick it to the wall behind the sink to allow further water to drain. After 5 or so minutes on the wall, blot the paper between the sheets on the left hand side of the sink, until paper is damp, but no longer dripping any excess fluid. The soaking process will leave the paper flexible in all directions as it will have softened the grain.
So my photos have skipped a few steps here, as this is the edge of the first print through the softened paper. To get to this step, the shapes that you’ll be using need to be inked up with the rollers using the colours of your choice… They then need to be placed ink-side up on the tissue paper on the bed of the press in the configuration you wish to print. Once in place, lay the soaked and blotted piece of paper carefully on top of the inked shapes, followed by the second piece of tissue paper and then the blankets. Printing can then begin, by turning the large side wheel to get the bed and the rollers in motion, in turn pulling the paper and shapes through too.
Here is the outcome of Vikki’s beautiful, triangle design in such vibrant colours.
The next step we took was to shuffle the configuration to experiment with overlapping…
Once put through the press again, the results were even more stunning!
My first print… A larger scale, but coincidentally similar colours to Vikki… Equally as striking as a first geometric print. To be continued….
Laura L Lord 