A printing favour

 

A friend of a friend asked if Fiona or could check out some old copper printing plates, see below, to see if it was possible to make prints from them. Given Fiona is up to her eyes in exhibition preparation I agreed to clean the plates and run a proof or two off them. The outcome of my endeavours is shown in the opening photo above.

After gently cleaning the plates I cut some quality etching print paper offcuts, dampened them, inked up the plates with water based etching ink and ran them through a small hand press we have.  One of the plates is shown below on paper and baseplate of the wee press.

I initially tried using Paynes grey ink but did not get a good proof so I switched to sepia - better outcome.

Whoever created the plates had done a very good drypoint job - some very fine detail as you can see in the photos above. The plate with the cross was not as good as the artist had used an etching process that did not work as well.

The current owner of the plates is now think about next steps - really depends on family connections etc. The task took me a couple of hours - good that Fiona and I have the skills to do small proofing tasks like this.

Stencils for an artists' book

 

Over the last couple of months I have been choosing images and cutting and testing stencils. The sprayed images will become a design element of a largish artists' book I have been planning - hopefully for an exhibition next year.

I have been choosing images to match words in the book. I'm cutting the stencils from flexible desk mats; and doing the quick test sprays with matt black paint - though on the plastic mats material it often shows up gloss.

Just sharing some of the test images here.

The size of the stencil cut area range from 15cm to 20cm. I quite like that with the hands cut out I got both a negative and positive image!! I also know I will be able to use the stencils for embossing - the mat material is just over a mm thick. 

I have to cut two more stencils yet.

A whole lot of printing

 

On Saturday I managed to really test the 3D printed plates I had printed at the recent 3D course by doing a series of 10 - printed 12 or 13 of course.. 

I did quite a bit of preparation on Thursday - chose paper in consultation with Fiona, cut paper, marked out a registration page etc. All set to go on the etching press.

I discussed ink with Fiona - we thought because it was relief printing I would dampen the paper and use water based ink that is usually used for lino-cut printing. But that did not work well - too uneven and ink bled.

So I ended up using a water based etching ink - which worked well as you can see from the photos below.

The prints are going to be tested as postcards  - so some letterpress to be added yet.

It has been a long time since I printed using the etching press - so I was pleased with the outcomes.

New tricks - 3D printing

 

Fiona and I did a two half day course with Judy Barrass on using 3D printers at the Noosa Library to create relief printing plates such as the completed one above - which still needs a bit of tidying up.

A couple of photos of the printing of the boat and hut follow.

The course was an introduction so the plates and printing are a bit on the rough side. Before we could ink the plates they needed to be sanded with fine sandpaper to take the rough printing edges off.

We did a couple of quick prints on damp quality printing paper using a small portable printer. The results were quite good.

Now to refine the the drawing, 3D printing and ink printing processes.

Inspiration and the beginning of execution

©2020 Barry Smith - Collagraph prints from my earlier urban series.

I have decided to do a series of A3 posters that, in general terms, reflect messages posted or grafitti on walls. I want to do letterpress over collagraph prints that are based on worn urban walls. The inspiration for this came from collagraphs that I did a few years ago that I referred to as an industrial-urban series. The opening photo is of some of those earlier prints.

The planning started with a cup of coffee and a Tim Tam whilst reading some books on poster prints.

©2020 Barry Smith  - Table and chairs in our new letterpress studio

©2020 Barry Smith  - Inspiration

The text of my first poster will focus on hope in dark times.

©2020 Barry Smith  - Fiona is trying to teach me the good habit of documenting what I do

The collagraph will be based on a photo I took in 2013 with my iPhone.

©2020 Barry Smith  - Love the textures and colours

A few of the process photos follow.

©2020 Barry Smith  - Building up the collagraph

©2020 Barry Smith  - Shellacing the base board - flaky shellac gives extra texture  and I'm trying to get shellac along the edges of the card to create shadows

©2020 Barry Smith  - You can see I have used braille paper to give an added industrial texture

There is still a long way to go with this; but we will see how it progresses and then prints.

A wee linocut

©2020 Barry Smith - First cut of the coffee horse float.

I managed to do the first cut of a small postcard size lino cut.  It is of a Coast Coffee stop between Armadale and Bettyhill in the Scottish Highlands.

A few of the process photos.

©2020 Barry Smith - Photo of Fiona and Graham at the coffee stop

©2020 Barry Smith - Image reduced to postcard size and converted to black and white

©2020 Barry Smith - Transferring the image

©2020 Barry Smith - Transfer working well

A few of the proofs using different papers and printing techniques.

©2020 Barry Smith - Proofs of the inked up lino cut

The lino cut has potential - detail to be reworked.

New/old press; and fragments from Japanese-Australian printmakers exhibition

©2019 Barry Smith - Large proofing press now installed at Deckled Edge Press

Over the weekend Fiona and I managed to pick up the old large proofing press in the photo above. It weighs about 95kg and has the potential to print posters on a full sheet off quality paper (500mmX700mm). We think this is going to work well with the larger wood type. A couple of refinements of the press are that it has a clipping mechanism for holing the paper; and the pressure of the rollers can be set to cope with the height of the type. Looking forward to testing it in the coming months.

We went to the Caloundra Gallery to see the prints in the Japanese-Australian printmakers exhibition. We thought we might miss seeing this great exhibition as it was on whilst we were overseas. Fortunately it finishes on 10 November so we go to enjoy it. Quite a few fragments of some of the prints follow.

Congratulations need to go to the Caloundra Gallery and Print Council of Australia for all the effort it has taken to bring this high quality international exhibition to fruition.