After the Ketchup- More Experiments in Pressless Printmaking- Drypoint without a Printing Press2/11/2019
This is a bit long, so to summarise it- I wanted a method of doing drypoints presslessly using liquid drawing ink, instead of the usual printing inks. I found a method that lets me use material I would otherwise waste- I can use it with dry media or printmaking inks too, and that lets me work on a large scale. I can also use resists in a way that creates the look of certain etching effects. If you want to read more, please do read on :) WHY? In September I was framing work for an unexpected solo exhibition. I wanted some large prints and needed to make some at short notice- no time to do a woodcut, no time to wait for printing ink to dry, no patience to do a wood drypoint... I also wanted a small print: again with limited time to make it, ready to accompany my pictures for Draw 19 in London. Neither of my selected pics were printmaking, and I wanted to show that side of my work. This was going into an auction and would be unframed in a cellophane wrap. That ruled out printing in dry media, the obvious choice at short notice. I am happy for my artworks to be scribbly, but like my mounts to be neat. I use expensive conservation mountboard and it gets wrecked so easily: a fleck of pastel, the demise of some unfortunate passing moth, a dent where I've leant the cutting rule too hard on the board, a child walks past with a bottle of ketchup- sometimes you feel you can't win. I've always thought that I'll find a use for these minisculely-damaged bits of board. Years ago, Karen at Artcetera in Boscombe, who framed up 2 of my pictures when I was first starting out, suggested I could try cutting into mountboard and printing from it. I couldn't quite picture what she meant, and I imagined slicing into the board with a scalpel and it just didn't feel me, but perhaps that stayed at the back of my mind. "I wonder", I thought, "whether I can do drypoint into the mountboard, use drawing ink instead of printing ink or dry media, and manage to get a good print- doing all this without a press...Hmm???" What is Drypoint? Drypoint is sister to etching. Etching uses chemicals- acid, etc, to bite lines or dots into a printing plate. Drypoint means doing that dry = by hand- well, with a tool and a bit of effort- take a tent peg, nail, knife blade or bodkin- or even a professional tool- I may buy myself one someday- and you scratch with that into your printing surface. Copper, zinc and perspex are all normal. I've found old photos work beautifull- you can find an earlier blog I did on "photdrypoints" :). To print an intaglio printing plate, you get the ink into the depressions you've made, clean the surface, put the paper on top. If you have a press, you damp the paper and the pressure forces it into the cracks, picking the ink up. With no press, you rub the back of the paper like crazy to transfer the ink onto the paper. I did a demo of pressless printmaking at Milford Arts Club on Jan 2nd, and there was surprise at printing intaglio prints without a press. Relief printing, like woodcut and linocut, where the ink is on the raised surface, is certainly much easier to do without a press than intaglio, where the ink is in the grooves on the plate, but it is still possible- it just takes more effort! My reasons not to use photos for this were that- 1. I have very few left to use, 2. None of them are large, 3. I didn't feel they work well with liquid ink, but for dry media and printing ink on a small scale, they are great. I needed a break from the framing, anyway and started out immediately. I found something to scratch with, worked into the mountboard with that, then used drawing ink and met with instant success.. followed by immediate failure. More triumph, alternating with disaster- that's a much higher perecentage of winning than I usually get with printmaking adventures! Here's what happened and what I learnt: What Happened |