This was a long, good weekend in the studio, I got a lot of work done, succeeded in some projects, failed in others and now it is really late, and all I have time left for, is showing you some photos from the last two days. I hope to find some more time for more detailed blogging in the next days.
In my last post, I showed you the printing plate for this fish above, yesterday I finally printed it. I made a total of 10 prints, and the last ones really are the best. – It took some learning and getting used to how to wipe the plate so that the right amount of ink stays on it. I am rather satisfied with the outcome of those last prints, though.
Elevated by the success, I tried to move on to printing some business cards (and maybe later use the scan since printing with such a late yields not much more than 10 prints usually). However, this is rather a failure. I am not sure what exactly went wrong, but I guess it is the combination of a less well suited image, with a too shallow scratching and then to ferocious wiping which removed the last grates to hold ink. This is one of the best prints I got from there on it went straight down:
On it went with lino cutting and printing. I’ll want to talk about that in more detail, since it was a grand failure, and I don’t want to miss the chance of learning and remembering. Some details I still like, though.
It is really a shame that this didn’t work out. I spend two half days on it, and now have about 30 prints for the waste bin.
Above you see my registration jig which was no good and thus wasted all those prints. Unfortunately I only realized that when I was doing the forth state of the print…
And this is the first message in a bottle, the start of something that I plan to be a longer project. Well, and now I hear the bed calling my name so loud that I can’t concentrate on writing anymore. A good night to you all!
Well, it looks to me like a very productive weekend. And if we can recognise and learn from failures, then that’s a positive outcome.
Re: registration…Sherrie, over at Brush and Baren, has a very good set-up.She has a link on her sidebar to the post where she explains it. http://brushandbaren.blogspot.com/2008/12/linocut-jig.html
Hope you slept well! 😉
Thanks for the link. The construction they are using looks very versatile! I used a similar setup in the past, however much less re-usable, and made from cardboard rather than wood. Their construction with the frame and the wooden shims looks so neat, I wish I had such a one. Maybe I’ll try to build one like it. I am looking forward to taking a closer look at the whole blog later, when I can find the time. Thanks for the link!
My registration problem, however, would not have been solved by their jig. Or it would have if I had not done the stupid mistake to print from two blocks that have to be positioned differently to overlap in the right way. (I started out with identical, square pieces of lino, but then – well, it seemed to make sense at the moment, and I’ll go into detail later – I cut away large pieces of both so that this square jig wouldn’t have done anymore.) I then reduced both blocks. The registration of those two individually worked fine with my setup, (even though I had the stupid idea to print from almost round blocks – There comes another slap on the forehead!). Placing the two in position was what I failed at. As well as a couple of more things. Well, I do intent to list all the many mistakes I took there 🙂
Whether I slept well? Well, as good as can be supposed when getting up 6 times in total for two toddlers who really by comparison should be sleeping without interruption by now. growl. Luckily it is hubby’s turn to get up tonight and tomorrow is another studio day, tra-lala-lala 😀
P.S.: By the way, your lino print fish is still hanging from my studio wall directly above my press. On that wall I usually don’t hang my own artwork, but maybe he’ll get company now 🙂