Paper Test 29 Feb 04

At the end of project 2 with the conventional woodblock I decided to go over completely to water based inks. I wanted to settle on one kind of ink and one or two different papers. I already had some inks called Akua which were water based so I decided to use these. In order to use Akua Color with a roller you have to add something called Tack-Thickener. After some preliminary experiments I found that although the Tack-Thickener does make the ink tackier its still not sticky like normal oil based ink and tends to allow the paper to slip. I found that using damp paper makes slipping less likely so all these tests were done with damp paper. I also had trouble laying the ink on primed plywood. It just wouldn't come off the roller onto the primed wood. I found it better rolling directly onto the unprimed wood. As with the oil based inks there was quite a variation in performance between the different pigments with the earth colours being especially difficult. I picked 5 papers from the catalogue. The ones I picked were all smooth or very smooth because I find that better when printing by hand rather than with a press. The papers were:-

 

 

This is my 2 colour test print. Not brilliant, I know, but it suited the purpose.

 

Paper.

Click on name to see a detail.

Pros
Cons
Comments
High quality paper.

A bit too rough.

Second most expensive paper

This is a nice paper but a bit too rough. I had to press very hard on my wooden spoon to get a good print.

Very smooth. High quality paper. Quite thick which makes it hard to find where to press the wooden spoon.

This turned out the best print.

Zerkall Extra Smooth White

Cheap.

Good print.

Thin so you can see where to press the wooden spoon.

A bit too thin. Cockles after drying. This was a very cheap paper. It produced a good print but the thin paper cockled as it dried.

Cheap.

Good print but not as good as Fabriano Artistico.

  This paper is also cheap and comes in big sheets. It has a water mark which says 50% cotton. It doesn't say what the rest is. Pulp I suppose. Anyway it produced a very good print.

 

Arches 88

Transparent when wet so you can see where to apply the wooden spoon.

A very nice soft print.

Dries very flat.

Expensive.

This is a very odd paper. I heard mention of it before in the printing context so thats why I included it. It is very smooth and produced a very good print when dry except that it slipped easily on the block. When you wet the paper it soaks up water like a sponge. The print comes out very soft. If the paper is too wet then the ink bleeds a lot. The soft print would be great for some pictures.

I found out later that this is called a waterleaf paper and it has no internal sizing. Thats why it soaks up the water. I believe it is used in silk screen printing. I was warned that the paper tends to fall apart but I didn't find that.

Conclusions

I think I'll settle on the Fabriano Artistico for final prints and use Fabriano 5 for proofing etc. I also like Arches 88 very much, but not for all prints. Its quite expensive but I think I'll keep a few sheets for further experiments.

 

 

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