Experimenting...

02/29/2012

So recently (as of last Friday, I believe), I've been working on an edition of prints for the GMU Print Guild's Share Print Exchange, of which what is left over is going to be auctioned off as a fundraiser for the Arlington Food Assistance Center food bank. So this edition is going to a good cause! Here's a link to the AFAC's website: http://www.afac.org/

This edition had to have a theme relating to the not-so-dark sides of hunger, sharing, and food or anything in that genre. I'm not too original, but I knew that I wanted to do something bright, colorful, and relating to food, so I did a still life of what I found in my house: bananas, pears, oranges, baby carrots, and apples. I set up a still life I liked and photographed it and I based my print off of my photographs. It wasn't until late I realized that it kind of looked like a smiley face. Wow. Hopefully it will be subtle enough that it's not a blatant smiley, but then again it's supposed to be a bright, happy print, and if sneaking in colorful shapes that make up a smiley face will do it, then so it shall be!

Quick pastel sketch of the still life with my initial color idea I washed over with a brush.

My translation of it to tracing paper. It was at this stage I realized how... happy... this print is.
Also I like how this looks on it's own.

At first I was thinking of constructing this composition with a tetradic color combination, but as I was using yellow, orange, and red, I started leaning towards having an analogous color scheme and making the shadows and last layer a red-violet. Although I imagined using a purple at first, but then I remembered this ghastly colored print I did a couple years ago that was yellow and purple, which I assumed would work as complements, but it was too jarring, so I'm hesitant to use purple for this print, but maybe with the orange and red, purple wouldn't be as bad.

Naturally, I've made this print way too complicated for myself. I initially thought it was a smaller edition size, so making 5+ layers was no problem given the timing. But then the edition size was upped to 30 and then deadline moved from April 1 to March 12. So I got moving! I transferred the drawing to the block with sharpies and then shellacked it. The shellac naturally made the sharpies bleed (I expected that much), but also I'm reusing a block I had initially drawn on at school and decided not to continue with, and painted over that with a grey or white acrylic wash, so the texture was already strange. The layer of shellac I put on was thicker than I thought, or could see in the dim lighting of my garage, so after propping it up before it was actually dry, the shellac dripped down and dried, kind of creating an additional texture I didn't expect. 

Here's the block with the drawing pre-shellaced!
You can also see the grid of lines I drew for registration purposes!
Those lines are very, very useful! Especially with my stencils!

In planning this print, I knew I didn't necessarily want to build it one layer at a time since I figured that would take longer to dry and carve. So I decided to make a series of stencils that I would use instead. So I made stencils for a white layer (I was using BFK Rives tan paper), a yellow, an orange, and a red layer, too. I coated both sides of the stencil with matte medium before I cut out the stencil, which, thank goodness, has helped it be a much stronger stencil, and by coating it before I cut it, it's less smoother and less sloppy than if I coated it after I made the cuts, and it made cutting it out easier.


The white layer! You can see that some of the paper ended up tearing. Mostly because I painted the medium on it directly with the table under, so now my table has a ton of medium/paper stuck on it that I mistakenly tried to use a razor and denatured alcohol to remove it. Whoops. The lessons I learn from this!



The yellow stencil! Yay banana and pears!

So here's my leftover shapes from the stencils. I'm really considering making something from this, I love the assortment of curvy shapes!

Another decision I made was that I wanted to hand print this. Mostly because it's a hassle to print my thicker woodblocks at GMU since I was told not to use their press blankets but mat board, which I found left odd impressions on my prints with my print, Angie at Night I showed on my blog earlier. So I printed the white layer there! I'm only printing 36 and I'm keeping my expectations low on having a "perfect" edition, since I'm not only hand printing, but I've also decided to mix my colored inks using oil paint. Which brings me to even more experimenting (beyond stencils!)

Set up for my first layer. Unfortunately the white layer came out much fainter than I wanted and so for my future self, I advise myself to put plate oil or something in it so that the ink spreads a little more and appears more evenly opaque, if that's the effect I want.

After the white layer I painted another layer of shellac on it to smooth out the surface, and I carved out what I wanted to remain tan and white!

Carving! You can see the shellac lines on here more clearly. It showed up prominently in the white layer. I went back with sandpaper and steel wool to try to make it more even for the colored layers, but because its in that first white layer it will show through. At least it kind of looks wood-like and goes with the grain so it doesn't appear completely out of place!

Set-up for my yellow layer!

So I decided I will print the yellow, orange, and red layers at home. And I don't have yellow, orange, nor red printmaking ink. I tried to research online if I could use oil paint (I mean, I've used oil paint for monotypes before, I'm only guessing I could use it for relief!). A quick google search led me to a website that suggested mixing the oil paint with a transparent base to make it more usable for reliefs. Also a side note: I'm not sure if I would ever use oil paint for my ink if I hadn't shellacked my woodblock first; it may soak into the wood or something! Which could be interesting, too.  

I needed the ink to be less oily and loose, for oil paint is even looser than color etching ink. (Hmm. there's a joke in there somewhere.) Anyway, for some of the pronto plate lithographs I did at George Mason, we mixed in magnesium carbonate to make the ink stiffer, which, I don't understand the chemistry completely, but I figured that this pure white powdery substance both absorbed oil and worked as some kind of additive or binder that didn't detract from the ink's properties too much. I looked at the price of the magnesium carbonate they sold at Plaza and decided it wasn't worth investing in yet, so I just bought the transparent base and the cheaper Plaza oil paints so I don't use my nice Gamblin oil paints for this potentially risky ink. Also, I think when I went to buy these supplies I figured I'd print the edition at GMU which has magnesium carbonate, but then I didn't think to get some while I was there printing the white layer.

Sorry, the last paragraph is just leading to this: I decided to add baby powder to my ink. A quick google/wikipedia search for the chemical properties of talc vaguely gave me the sense that baby powder is very much like magnesium carbonate, and in fact, talc sometimes comes from magnesium carbonate, depending on the grade and how it's extracted, since it comes from varying geological sources. But mostly Talc, or baby powder, is a magnesium silicate, and is apparently not soluble in water, and is apparently used in paper making, paints, and cosmetics. So I figured this could still work for what I wanted, although I'm nervous that about the "fragrance" ingredient in baby powder and I wonder if that will effect it.

Unlike the white stencil, in which I used to block white ink from getting on the paper, I rolled the ink on top of the stencil to ink part of the block. I think this in itself looks neat, with the carved lines, sharpie lines, and the staining from the prior drawing/staining I had.

At GMU I initially used a brayer and paper/plastic to roll over the paper. At home I'm using a rolling pin over a piece of red craft felt I've had for years, which I think has been helping. It's a little squishy and more flexible than paper so I think It can sink into some of the carved out areas effectively. And then I've rolled my rubber brayer over just to be sure, and it's been working!

Some of my prints from yellow layer. I don't have a drying rack so I just set it out on my table and bed. I've considered stringing ribbon across my room and using clips to hang dry them, but I haven't figured out the best place to do that yet.  

So I'm also nervous about using oil paint because I know the oil has the potential to spread out from the inked areas as it absorbs into the paper over time to create a darker halo of sorts. It's kind of like when you first learn about how lipids, or the grease in greasy food, get absorbed on a brown paper bag, it's the same principle.

Orange stencil after I was done!

Several of my prints after the third printed layer! It's starting to come together!

So, using oil paint also means that it takes it longer to dry. So, waiting 24 hours wasn't completely long enough, hence, the yellow ink residue on the block, but at the same time it didn't look like it affected the prints too much.

After the orange layer! You can also still see stripes on the table from my mini matte medium disaster. Hmm "Mini Matte Medium Disaster" sounds like a really artsy band name, and oxymoronic.

So I finished this print before dinner. When my family and I got home, I came to find that one of the cats must have gotten in my room and laid on my bed near my pillow... on top of my prints. Four of my prints were dented! And had cat hair in the fresh ink. I'm convinced it's from our cat Sherlock based on the hairy evidence.  I shall look for ribbon and clips, but I fear the cats would try to tear that down, too.

There will be more pictures to come when I finish the print! Two more layers to go! Must finish it before I get my wisdom teeth removed next Monday and figure out when I'm going to deliver them! 

Also... for those of you who read to the end, I have heard back from two grad schools: one rejection, and one acceptance with a little $. I'll share more later!