Wedding Wednesday - part 9

Thank you everyone who came and made it such a lovely day ... 5 months in (yes, a bit late ... ), but we got there!

Making process here.

Thank you Adana

Phew! What a steep learning curve this has been ... Regular readers will remember that we procured an Adana 8x5 not too long ago; but then promtly stopped blogging about it. Well, we have actually been using it, but its been a lot of trial and error over several days. And with college and life, those days have been non-concurrent.

But I am pleased to say now that I think we have it (mostly) down, and have done our first two print runs (they are of the same thing - our wedding thank you cards - we just ran out of cards and had to go and buy a second box of supplies). Anyways, here's a kind of 'photo story' of the process. It's made up of photos from a couple of goes - so there isn't necessarily continuity in what's going on. Here goes... :

We start with my original design - then traced into the two separate colours (at the end I ended up re-drawing the whole thing as one piece and scanned it into Photoshop, and did the separating into two layers that way - and printed the two layers out separately).

Next, printed the layers out on acetate - in negative (for making photopolymer flexoplates).

I'm lucky that in my college they have the fascilities for making photopolymer flexoplates - it's a bit like making a silkscreen screen. There is a thin steel plate with some photoemulsion on it. You place the negative acetate the wrong way round on the emulsion and then expose it to UV light. The exposed bits harden (what you're going to print with), and you wash away the unhardened bits. Here are my two plates for the two colour separations.

Imagine then I've mounted the plates on wood to get them 'type height' and used some quoins and furniture to clamp them in place in the chase. I got some of this fab Caligo Safe Wash ink - and here is me inking the ink disk.

Even before we could print we noticed that the plate was inking up too much. This was not going to do ...

Not only was it over-inking, it was not sticking properly to the wood base. We fiddled with this for LONG time... We tweeked the impression screws; we tried to lift the rollers by putting layers of tape on the edge of the roller bearer (the thing the chase sits in); and all sorts ...

To cut a long story short, Sunshine eventually took the whole thing apart, cut the plates down so the edges were closer to the printing bits, and remounted them on wood that he had put through a special machine that would sand it down to the exact height. We made sure the plates were stuck down well, and we even had to hammer down some of the corners that kept getting inked.

Eventually though we finally managed to get it all working ... first print run we did this plate (with the rings) first - then the one with the figures. The second print run the following week we did the other way round as can be seen here:

I'm not entirely sure why I'm speaking like a child o_O ... also, when changing between the two plates, I did the old screenprint registration trick of taping down some acetate to print on, and then putting a card with the first colour on, underneath the printed acetate to align it properly. The Adana has an adjustable 'lay gauge' that holds the bottom of the card where you want it, and we used a piece of thick acetate to mark off one of the edges. You can see me pushing the card up against it in the video.

Final card to be unveiled on Wedding Wednesday tomorrow ;)

Adana update

So, there's far more to hand-presses than you would think. I have been doing a lot of reading and yesterday even managed to see one of the print tutors and borrow a quoin key so that I could unlock the type and clean out the chase that came with my Adana. Last week I also managed to drop by the Impact 2009 product fair (I wasn't a delegate - just gate crashed!); and speak to the people who make these Safe Wash inks - and they gave me a couple of free samples :)

So today when my rollers finally arrivd in the post, Sunshine and I had a go at printing ...

We haven't really got the correct 'tympan' on the platen yet - I've ordered some in; but in the meantime was just using some paper and board of random thickness ... We tried the Christmassy type that came with the print... But didn't manage to get a very good impression ... (even after fiddling with the impression screws).


Then we tried some spice jar labels (something I had picked up at a charity shop a long time ago ...). OK but not great. I think we also don't quite have the right sort of paper - tried several varieties and the results are quite variable.

Then we tried a wood block that I'd got the same time I'd got those spice jar labels.

This was probably the nicest - but still with issues.

By this point we were both very hungry for dinner, so cleaned everything up (these Safe Wash inks are a joy to work with - oil based but cleans up with washing up liquid!); and we shall leave more experimenting (other papers? flexoplates? other inks? wooden type?) for another day ...

Holy Adana!?!

Years of keeping eyes peeled (well actually Sunshine spotted it...) at charity shops/reclaimers/ebay etc have finally lead to a dream find... let me introduce you to the latest addition to the family: "Adony" (that's what Sunshine keeps calling it!) - a vintage Adana 8x5 in fully working order. We've de-gunk-ified and got all the parts oiled and moving. Need to invest in some rollers, ink, and type/image plates ... and we shall be in letterpress heaven! Wow-wee!!!

Note: It's tabletop sized - looks a bit big because of the angle the photo's been taken in ... See pic below of Sunshine reassembling it:

Merry Happy Holidays!

Continuing on my theme of typographic holiday greetings, here's this year's Gocco printed card :) I made them the day I failed my driving test, so I was desperately trying to cheer myself up...

Hope those of you who actually got a copy, liked them ... and to everyone else (especially all those coming recently from pikaland.com and neo2.es), HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The Music of Microorganisms ...

I've been thinking a lot about bacteria (and other microorganisms)...

And I've been thinking a lot about jazz (specifically swing)...

And have tried to bring the two together ...

But very unsuccessfully I feel ...

So I went to the tutors with all the work I had done, and asked them "How do I make sense of this?", and they, with their much well trained eyes said, "Well, what about doing this?". It was there right before my eyes, but I couldn't see. I just needed someone who could step back from it all and tell me how it could all work together.

Have a lot of work to do over the Christmas holidays - 12 pieces of work; the thought of which kept me stressfully awake all of last night! Hope I can make this come together well ...

Experimental print

I've been playing round with print processes lately to see if I can get textures that give a sense of bacteria-ness (for the culture project).

At home I've been playing with monoprints and using water based block printing inks, and drops of water, and stencils and other stuff.


And at college I have been using the presses to do embossing and collagraphy to see how I might be able to get different textures. I especially love the effects I can get using bits of wood veneer and rough sandpaper. I think I prefer the embossed stuff to the inked stuff ... hmmm....


Still no clear idea about where I'm going with this - but at least I'm moving and enjoying the process ...

Merry Xmas!

Here's me printing them. Hope those of you that got them like them, and a very Happy Christmas and a Joyous 2008 to all!

Etching introductory workshop

Yesterday we had our introduction to the etching studios. We were given copper plates that we learnt how to clean, put a thin layer of wax on, and treat with a taper to give a black sooty layer (not many photos as the process was quite involved and I just couldn't do it and take photos at the same time!).

We then carefully etched on our image using a sharp tool. I decided to do the lyrics to the Beatles song 'Blackbird' - this meant writing the whole thing back-to-front ...

After acid treatment for an hour and washing off the wax, we inked up the plate and made some initial test prints of just the line work. This is what the plate looked like just before printing. I haven't got a picture of the print as it's still in college, drying.

The plates are inked up over the whole surface, and then the bulk of the ink wiped off leaving only ink that's gotten into the cut grooves in the metal. How much you wipe off can also make a difference to the print. Here I've selectively wiped the moon more than the background; which in turn is more wiped than the blackbird.

Today we did aquatinting, which involved fusing a layer of fine powdered pine resin to the plate, then selectively blocking bits out and acid treating (giving gradual tones to the image). The image at the top is one of the final prints I did today, and just above is a closeup.

I must say that I was less pleased with the aquatinting than just wiping away selectively. The wiping left a streaky texture on the print that I really liked. Also the tinting can be quite hit-and-miss - like my non-tinted moon and lightest tint just outside the moon. They were much too close in tone to my liking and so I still had to manipulate how much ink I wiped away to get a decent tonal range. Still, enjoyed the whole learning process and can see myself trying more in the future. I'll hopefully add a few more pictures when I get my dried prints back and you can see what I mean by some of the things I've mentioned in this entry.

Today was, sadly, our last print workshop. Fortunately though, this means we're now 'induced' ('inducted'?) and can sign up to use the print workshops ANYTIME we want ... HOORAY!

Relief printing introductory workshop

Most people think lino or woodblock when they think of relief printing. Both those techniques are a bit time consuming so as an introduction we've taken the quick and simple route: yesterday we did monoprints - ie ink up a flat plate, put a piece of paper on top, and then draw on the back. The pressure from the back picks up the ink onto the paper. As you can see I had a paper doily with me which was good fun to play with as a stencil; and I also quite got into doing moons by rubbing my thumb in a big circle :) Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Today we did collagraphs, which is essentially making a collage of textured material, then inking it up and printing. Below is my random collage of textured wallpaper, wood veneers, flower sequins and my inked doily from yesterday. All stuck down and then a layer of PVA over the top to seal everything.


Here's the plate inked up and with some bits covered over (like the flat bit behind the flowers) as I wanted a clean print. Sitting waiting to go through the gorgeous old Albion press (that I hurt my arm on trying to pull the lever across!).

And my final print!

Next week - our final print workshop, etching!

Lithography introductory workshop

This week's workshops were in the lithography studious. The artist that I've chosen to do my pastiche on printed using lithography, so I've decided to do the same. What you see above is one of my final prints on off-white Somerset Satin paper. I hope to add a bit of colour to it eventually. This time too I remembered to take my camera along so you can see a bit more of the process.

Below is what my drawing looked like (you can see the original sketch here). I enlarged my original sketch using a photocopier, then dusted underneath with a red powder called "dragon's blood". Using it like a form of 'carbon paper', I transfered my sketch onto an aluminium plate. I then drew directly onto the plate using lithographic crayons, and special ink called "touche".

This morning we treated the plates with rosin (to preserve the fines lines), talc (to help the gum arabic to adhere to the plates) and gum arabic with phosphoric acid (which makes the non-drawn on bits of plate repel ink and attract water). After the gum dried, we washed all the crayon and ink off using something called "wash out". Below is my freshly washed plate.

Here's our plates on the old 1920's newspaper proof printing press.

We then learnt how to wet the plate and ink it up - see how its started to pick up ink on the dress where I had painted with "touche"?

The ink gets picked up on the 'blanket' on the roller of the press - it's basically a PVC-coated drum of fabric.

And then prints onto your paper which has been placed next to (not on top of) the plate. Below is my first print (proof). After several more applications of ink and printing, the dress ended up taking on much more ink and thats what you can see in the final print at the top pf this entry.

Next week, relief printing ...