Stones worked on from August - December 2016

I have been a bit idle on the blog front over the past few months so thought I'd share what I've been up to lately..
I have been working on some more small graining stones (approx 20 cm square) - largely because they are portable (ish!) so I can cart them home in my rucksack and work on them in my studio. I have then printed the images onto Japanese Kozo paper back at Leicester Print Workshop which I will then transfer on to small squares of pre-cast concrete back in my studio in Sheffield.
The images were largely made with dry materials (crayon/ rubbing block) and selective use of litho ink. Fine lines were achieved by scratching lines in at the second etch stage and rubbing litho ink to the incised grooves.

 

Stone (above) and printed image below

Stone above and print below

Here's the first small print I made (discussed in a previous blog) pasted with starch paste onto a small slab of pre-cast concrete and then framed to show what I am planning to do with the above prints.

I also attempted a maniere noir stone - this involves covering the stone with a thin layer of litho ink and scratching into it to expose the bare stone - a bit like a mezzotint. Tonal differences were achieved by treating the inked areas with different strengths of acid. This stone was largely experimental and not that successful as I found the fine lines that I had incised kept filling up with ink and were thus not very visible! It may have worked better if I had tried working on a bigger scale so the lines were not so fine. Here's the stone anyway so hopefully you will get the idea ...!

Finally I have been working on 2 larger stones.

The first was a quite detailed image made using masking tapes, dry materials, lithographic ink and watery tusches. Here is the finished stone:

I did have some problems with this stone as unfortunately the previous image had not been completely removed from the stone when grained and kept reappearing! I was largely able to etch these areas back but it was a bit of a nuisance and reinforced the necessity to ensure that the stone is properly grained each time!

Here is the printed image - I also printed a very pale tint on the dried print. This was done by mixing litho ink extender with a very small amount of mixed beige coloured ink, rolling it on a very thin piece of aluminium cut to slightly bigger than the image size, placing it on the lithographic print and running it through the etching press. Here is the finished print:

Lastly the final stone I have been working on is a bit less complicated and was done using masking tapes, litho ink and rubbing block. Fine lines were achieved by scratching into the stone and rubbing ink into the incised grooves at the second etch stage. Here's the stone :

and the finished image, (again a tint was placed using the same method as above by rolling ink and extender onto aluminium plate and monoprinting it onto the dried lithographic black and white print)

LPW Lithography Summer school

I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front lately - largely because I have spent the past few months editioning a few of my stones and then graining them to remove the images - so not that much new to report!
During the last week of July Leicester Print Workshop was closed to members as it was running a Summer School offering 3 different print courses in letterpress (run by Sat Kalsi), etching (run by Sue Baker Kenton) and stone lithography run by Serena Smith.
The courses ran from Monday to Friday giving an opportunity for participants to immerse themselves in a printing technique in small groups of 6. I shadowed the stone lithography course and thought Id share with you some of the things the group got up to and the work they produced.
Out of the 6 participants, 5 had had some experience of lithography before (indeed one of the group had even brought one of the stones he had prepared earlier to process!). Several of the group were already members of LPW and most were local to Leicester however, one lady had travelled from as far away as Suffolk to attend.
The first day was spent with Serena explaining the lithography process and demonstrating different mark making materials - dry tusches (rubbing blocks, litho crayons etc) and  then liquid tusches, litho inks and soap solutions. Processing of the stone and first etches were shown and the group were then given several test stones to experiment mark making with. 

Trying out Korns' and Stones' liquid tusches on test stone

                                              
                                

Serena first etching test stone

Here are some of the group working on their test stones

and some close ups of the marks made:

The next days were spent further processing the test stones - second etching and proofing 

Serena rolling up test stone with Noir a Monter ink to process it

 here are some of the prints produced from their test stones

In between leaving stones to rest and proofing partcipants were also shown the graining technique (to remove the image when further prints are no longer required in order to re-use the stone again)

The wonderful Elspeth who spent many extra hours graining stones!

After processing their test stones the group were given a larger stone in order to put into practice the mark making experience gained - Here are some of their results!

All in all I think everyone had a really good week - there was a lot of information to impart and absorb in a short space of time but the whole group produced some amazing prints and I think many of them really had their appetite whetted to explore this wonderful process further. (Indeed all the members of the group who were LPW members have returned to continue working with their stones since the course finished!) On a personal note I really enjoyed the week - it refreshed my knowledge and has inspired me to use different materials in my own practice.

2nd May 2016 - One Year Of Litho

Over a whole year has passed since Nina and I started our Lithography Fellowship  (and as usual I am behind in updating my blog!). Like Nina (https://ninaoskarsdottir.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/one-year-of-litho/) I thought it would be a good opportunity to look back at what we have done and achieved. It has not always been an easy journey, the process is complex and sometimes physically exhausting and there have been many frustrations and tribulations along the way. However I have found it to be the most wonderful medium to work with and it produces marks of a quality that I have not encountered in any other print technique. There is also great sense of connectivity due to the physicalty of the process which I love. Nina and I work very differently, I tend to spend a lot of time on each individual stone (maybe its so I dont have to grain as many!?) which means that I havent probably experimented as much as perhaps I could have. As such over the remaining year I am hoping to play around a little more with tusche washes, transfer paper and also monoprinting as a means of mark making directly on to the stone.
Looking back over the year I have processed 11 stones and 3 photolithograph plates and have experimented with transferring rubbings, used masking tapes and added colour using monoprints, stencils, photolithoplates, watercolour, aerosol spray paints, collage and chine colle. I have also explored working on different scales with 4 of the stones that I have processed being quite small (less than 20cm  square - actually not traditional litho stones but the stones that we use to grain /physically remove the image from the larger stones when we no longer want to use the image). This has posed a challenge both in executing the drawing (I find it much easier to work on a larger scale due to the coarseness of some of the drawing materials used) and also printing the smaller stones. Lately I have tried registering two stones together with different tonal values to give a more complex image.

My huge thanks to LPW for providing this opportunity, ACE and of course to Serena for her endless patience and for sharing her vast knowledge!

Here are a few of the stones /prints produced over the year in date order - all the work relates to my continued work of Park Hill in Sheffield, the Brutalist Grade II* listed council estate

Very first stone experimenting with mark making, dry and liquid tusches and frottage

                       Second stone experimenting with marks drawn or rubbed on to transfer paper

        Next stone experimenting with dry and liquid tusches and also micro masking tapes

                                Print of above stone experimenting with colour using stencils

                             First  mini stone using masking tapes (not a huge successs!!)
                               

     
                                     Second  mini stone using masking tapes (Bit better)

Next large stone - experimenting more with tapes/rubbings /splattering / different dry and liquid drawing materials

                                                Experimenting with chine colle

                                 
                                                               3rd mini stone

                                                                   

                                       New stone to produce two stone lithograph print

2nd stone for two stone lithograph print which when registered with the stone above gave the print below

                                          Colour added using multiple monoprints (below)

6th. 13th, 14th April - Experiments with colour on 2 stone lithograph

Added colour onto editions of 2 stone print below

Using multiple pieces of cut varnished card as per blog 27th March I experimented with colour -monoprinting 13 different colours using lots of extender mixed into the ink to give the appearance of a glaze or watercolour wash.

These photos show the inked pieces of card placed face down on the print, the whole lot was then run through an etching press to transfer the coloured ink. The different areas of colour were added in stages requiring multiple runs through the press.
I experimented with lots of colour combinations but in the end preferred the variation shown below. I printed 4 of these but made careful notes and swatches of the colours used so that I could try to replicateit again.

31/3/16 and 1/4/16 - Pin Registration

This week I have gone back to working on my 2 stone lithograph.

I had previously had problems registering the 2 stones accurately. Serena suggested that I print the first stone with damp paper and the second stone with dry. I had been reading about pinhole registration techniques and wondered if this might offer a solution to my registration issues! So using an etching needle two points were chosen on the second stone to make two pinholes. Cadfoil with the image of the first stone drawn onto it was placed on the second stone and the 2 pinholes that had been scratched onto the stone were located. The holes from the stone were transferred onto the cadfoil and then the cadfoil was transferred to a print from the first stone. Two darning needles were inserted into 2 corks and the holes from the cadfoil were transferred onto the first print using these needles. The second stone was inked up using litho ink and NAM in a 50:50 mix and applied to the stone using a glazed roller.
A covering sheet of newsprint was placed over the inked stone initially and then the corked needles were placed in each of the 2 holes of the print  of the first stone and the print was localised on the second stone - (as the print was quite big it was a two man job!) Once the print was in the correct position the newsprint was removed and a proof taken.

Needle in corks positioned through print of first stone on to holes on second 

On the whole this pin hole registration technique worked pretty well and certainly much better than previous attempts!

The two registered stones on one print

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