Needling, Etching, Proofing - Progress Report Two of My Minneapolis

Once the drawing is done, I prepare the copper plates for a transfer. To polish the plates, this time I borrowed a fellow printmaker's orbital sander which he had outfitted with an old piece of printing felt instead of sandpaper to which I applied jewellers' rouge and oil for a final polish. It worked like a charm and saved a ton of time on those two large plates (I need to get one of my own!!!). After the polishing, a hard ground (asphaltum) is evenly and thinly brushed onto the surface of the plate. This brownish-black and shiny coating will protect the copper in the acid. Transferring the pencil drawing is really easy at this point. Once the asphaltum is dry, I simply run the plate with the drawing through the printing press and the graphite transfers beautifully onto the black surface without smudging. In late September I started needling the plate, meaning that I draw the whole image with a steel needle (I also like to use my burnisher for thicker, bolder lines) through the asphaltum layer. Where the copper is exposed, the acid will bite and therefore create my line etch. In this close-up of my plate you can see part of the graphite transfer and part of the already needled lines.

Once the plate is etched, I strip the asphaltum from the surface. Left are all the etched lines in the plate, which I then fill with a special printing ink, polish the surface of the plate clean and run it through the press with a sheet of damp paper overtop. Voilá! I have the first proof of my line etch (click on image to enlarge).

Since My Minneapolis will be a colour print, I need a second plate which will hold the colour. My first plate, the key plate, will hold all the black lines and any grey-black tones or aquatints (more about that later). For the colour plate to line up with my key plate, I need to use a good registration system (more about that also later) that will ensure that both plates will always overlap properly and 'match up' correctly. For this to work, I transfer the key image onto my second plate. As soon as I pull the first proof, I exchange the just printed plate on the press bed with my second plate that is coated with the asphaltum. I then run the still damp paper with the fresh print through the press again on top of my second and blank plate. The wet ink offsets onto the plate and I can start needling the lines on plate two which will be my guides for where I want all my colour areas to go. The offset black ink is clearly visible on the asphaltum as you can see in the detail below. Now I have to draw (parts of) the image for a third time. Usually I etch the lines on the colour plate really lightly simply to be guides for the colour aquatints later. 

Drawing - Progress Report One on My Minneapolis

Since my new piece is taking so long to finish, I've decided to share some of the early stages and the process that's involved in creating the etching plates with you. In early September I started working on a drawing for a print about Minneapolis. After two years of living here I have established some connections with the place that allow me to create a map of all the things and landmarks that are significant to me. I did a lot of biking around in late summer to take photographs of buildings, bridges, parks, as reference images. I started on the Greenway, which runs just a few blocks from our place (it's the most amazing double-laned bike highway running east to west through the city along old railroad tracks...hardly any lights or stop signs...you just go go go), across the Sabo bridge (cyclists' bridge alone!)  to the Mississippi river, up along the river to the St. Anthony Falls and the Stone Arch Bridge, through downtown and back. With all the things I wanted to include in the piece, it got rather large, but since I've always wanted to try to work at this scale, I decided to go for it, especially since I have access to a large rosin box and acid bath here at Highpoint. The plates are 24" x 36" (60cm x 90cm)...yes, you read correctly, 'plates': this will be a double plate print. I hope it's going to work the way I imagine it. I struggled a lot with the layout of the image and since the scale and the placement of various elements kept changing, I opted for cut out sketches that I was able to move around, scan, enlarge or reduce in size until I was happy with the overall image. To me this is the same process as editing a text. I have a first draft; then I start to edit and shift things around until things look and feel right. The process is far from over before I can show a final piece of art.

My First Lithograph

I have neglected my blog for a while, but I'm back again. I am currently taking a workshop in lithography at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking and yesterday I pulled my first prints. How exhilarating to have gone through that series of rather obscure chemical processes involving stone, grease pencils, tusche, gum arabic, and acids and in the end pulling a print from the surface of a stone! I wasn't sure I was going to like lithography because I feel I have so much less control over the image than I do in etching, but I actually really enjoy the process.

Homage to Chagall - Over the Town.

Lithograph.

20cm x 20cm. 2013.

As the title indicates, the image is obviously inspired by Marc Chagall's painting and print Over the Town. I recently read a novel about Chagall by Barbara Krause, and I still have so many of the images floating around in my head (more floating!). I think there is no other artist who captures the wonderfulness and the magic of love quite like Chagall does and where else does love take us but into that space between heaven and earth. 

My image in the lithograph is taken from a detail of a much larger etching I'm currently working on (more about that very soon!) which is finally a piece about Minneapolis. Long story short, my husband and I met and fell in love in Minneapolis almost ten years ago, so of course I had to somehow fit that in with my Minneapolis print. I don't like working with new images when I learn a new technique, so I decided to translate this detail into tusche washes and crayon lines. Just for the fun of it, here's the stone with the drawing on it. 

Global Print 2013

A few months ago I was invited to send some work of mine for the Global Print 2013 Exhibition in Alijó, Portugal. I feel very honoured to have received this invitation and this is the first time I'm showing some work of mine in Europe. The exhibition runs from August 31 - October 30. One of my prints is currently on display there (McDermot Avenue I), and two others will be on display at the same location next year as part of the 7th Douro Biennal 2014. So, if you find yourself in Portugal, please check out the show.

My Winnipeg IV

My Winnipeg IV.

Linocut.

60cm x 60cm. 2013.

My paper arrived and with great excitement I started printing and here is My Winnipeg IV. I'm printing on Revere, a newer line of cotton paper by the Cartiera Magnani mill in Italy, the same mill that makes the Pescia Magnani paper I usually use. As I mentioned in my previous post, I re-used a previous image of an etching for this piece (My Winnipeg II), changing the scale to 60cm x 60cm (24" x 24") and translating it into black and white, with a focus on patterning. It took me about a day and multiple prints before figuring out how to ink the plate just right. I always have to get to know a plate first after I've made it before I can print it properly, even though it's 'just' a relief print. It was the background that was (and still is) giving me a hard time to get it just right. The background consists of relatively wide open and flat areas I carved away, so in some places, the brayer inevitably touches down and leaves a mark, especially around the edges. I solved the problem by using a soft brayer with a thin coat of ink to get deep down into the recessed areas, which don't get the same amount of pressure as the surface of the plate resulting in that grey patterned tone. The looseness of the background takes away some of that black and white starkness of the image. The surface of the plate I ink up with a harder brayer. Now the printing of the edition begins.

Linocut - My Winnipeg IV

I was hoping to post a new print by now, but I'm still waiting on a delayed paper order, so no paper, no prints yet. Instead, I'll show you the plate I've been working on for the past few weeks. It's a fairly large linocut (24" x 24"). I've once again re-used a previous image I've done as an etching a few years back to re-interpret it in black and white on a larger scale. I have this wonderfully huge roll of flooring linoleum sitting around (6' x 8'), which I found really cheap at a thrift store a few months ago. Leftovers from construction I assume. I've been wanting to just cut a piece out and work on it for a while already and I finally did. I love this kind of linoleum. I used it at the university and at Martha Street Studio in Winnipeg, and having so much at my disposal suddenly made me salivate to do some block printing again, which I haven't done on this scale since the Steamroller Festival in 2010. The linoleum or the company that makes it is called Tarkett. It is a flooring vinyl with a high cork content and wonderful for carving. It is much softer than art linoleum or wood, but strong enough to hold up to large editions of more than 50 prints. Some people might want to mount it, but I never do. I just put a plexi-plate underneath to carry it around and slide it onto the press bed. The part I love best about this linoleum is that I can edit my plates. Imagine that, to edit a blockprint! I always edit my etchings, scraping, burnishing and re-etching, since a plate never turns out quite right the first time. With blockprints I tend to be very nervous getting only one try; if the tool slips or I've cut away too much in one area and the image looks off balance that's it, right? Wrong. I simply cut out the shape I want to replace and carve a new piece. You can see in the image below all the parts I replaced after proofing since I used leftover pieces of grey linoleum (the same kind and thickness as the orange...just a different colour). I simply use contact paper to adhere the pieces from the back and keep them in place. I don't know where the stuff is actually available, but perhaps a flooring company would know or even have offcuts.

Illustrations

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It has been so long since I posted some new work! For months now between trips and travels I've been working on and off to get my submissions for a new children's picture book ready and today I finally sent out the first ones. I finished a dummy book with sketches and I also made two finished illustrations as samples. I initially wanted to paint them, but that didn't work the way I wanted, so I foolishly opted for copper etchings. Can you imagine illustrating a whole book with double-plate etchings? But why not? I'm super happy how the illustrations turned out plus I had a ton of fun making them. I can't wait to make the rest of them. Well, I'm getting ahead of myself. First I have to land a publishing contract, which might take years.

If you can't figure it out from these two illustrations, the story is about an armadillo trying to find the rain since his waterhole is drying up. 

Double page