Monday, April 30, 2018

Mori Point Line Etching

Inspired by a lookout point called Mori Point in Pacifica, CA I created this image using the three plate aquatint etching process. This is a printmaking process where one plate is etched with an image and transferred onto two other plates. Or three plates. The idea is to use the traditional printmaking method of CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) for this image I just used Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow. The idea was to make my blacks using a combination of these three colors.

The next step was using a process called aquatinting for these plates, in this process you melt rosin onto the plates, and bite the plates in acid at different stages to achieve light and dark values.

After I did this I inked each of the plates, with it's own color so that when I printed them together they lay on top of each other to get different colors.

Here is a proof of the blue plate printed:


I would then place the inked yellow plate down, and roll it through the press, then the Magenta plate. To achieve this image:


"Mori Point" Original edition 1/25

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Sunday, April 8, 2018

Koi Fish- 5 Step Reduction Linocut




Hello,

Over the past few weeks i've been working on what's called a reduction linocut, otherwise known as a suicide print. This is the process of cutting away from the linoleum block in layers and printing in separate stages to get a full color print.

First I drew my image directly onto the plate with a sharpie, so I can see my image more clearly when I cut.
I then began to cut away areas of the plate, that I wanted to remain white.




imprint of image on the ink roller.
The first color layer that I rolled onto my plate was yellow. I want to work light from dark so that my darker colors
overlap the lighter ones.

I then cut away areas of the plate that I want to keep yellow, and rolled my next color orange onto the plate.



I then inked up the plate to print red.



for this one I used a blue color gradient for the background, I created this by mixing a lighter and a darker blue side by side and then rolling it onto the plate. I didn't originally plan to use a color gradient, but thought it would be a fun experiment. I think the gradient adds a lot more depth to the piece.

The final layer that I printed was black for the outlines of the piece, and the small details of the fish.


This process is also known as a suicide print, because once you cut away layers you can't make any changes. It's also not possible to make more prints when you are done. I had to print the number of prints I wanted in my edition from the beginning when I printed the first layer. First I started with 15 prints, and ended up with an edition of 10. There were a few mishaps.

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I'm also offering up these prints for sale at a discounted rate until April 12th!

click here to get your limited edition print of 10.