Getting it Together
With Water Based Inks 20 Mar 04
After a lot of trial and error testing I've finally come up with a method that suits what I want to do. What I want is a method of using water based inks without a press. I also want to make fairly large prints. Say up to 24 inches by 36 inches. What I've come up with is this:-
1. I'm going to use Birch Plywood which is fairly cheap and comes in big sheets. You can't do very fine work with it but that will be ok in bigger prints.
2. I'm going to use Akua Color for my ink mixed with a little Tack Thickener.
3. After doing all those tests on western style papers I finally ended up with Japanese paper and I'm going to use it damp.
This little project took longer than I thought to finish. The final picture is not brilliant but the print was as I wanted.
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This is my sketch done with wax crayons. Don't really know whats going on here.
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This is the first version. There are 6 blocks in 5 colours. The colours are : 1. Yellow 2. Yellow Ochre 3. Red 4. Red 5. Purple 6. Black It looks better on my laptop than it does in the flesh. Its just a bit too chaotic but there are some nice effects where the colours overlap.
I decided to drastically simplify it.
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This is the second version. Just 3 colours. Yellow, red and black. I decided to hack it about some more. |
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This is the final version. Its not brilliant but I'm pleased with the way its printed. I especially liked the way the grain of the wood shows very faintly in the flat areas of colour.
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