3rd/ 4th February 2016 - RESCUING A DISAPPEARING IMAGE!

I have been working on a new stone to add greater depths of tone to the stone below.

The idea was to take the prints from the stone above and print on them again the image from the stone below.
The difficulty though will be in registering the prints accurately on the new stone!

Here's the second stone showing areas of increased tone in the alcove area of the image and on the walls behind the 2 columns.The stone was etched lightly the week before after it had been drawn. I etched it again using a variety of acid strengths (Atzol on dark areas, 50%  diluteed strength atzol on the mid tone areas and home made GA solution on the lightest areas ). The stone was rolled up with non drying ink and left to rest overnight.
However when the stone was revisited the next day the image was really pale and some of the detail originally drawn had been lost!

Serena (my tutor) had suggested taking proofs using litho ink initially. A couple of proofs were taken but things were still looking really pale ...I added some extender to try and thicken up the ink but that did n't improve things much either!
 After consulting Serena she suggested printing with some Charbonnel Velour Noir ink which is notoriously difficult to handle as it picks up every grease mark on the stone (including the ones that you dont want!) - (however any extraneous unwanted marks can be treated later with acid to remove them).
The ink does though give beautiful velvety texture and is useful in picking up any faint marks that are not behaving (like those on my stone). It was frequently used by Braque so I am in good company!

A turpsy rag smeared with the ink was wiped briskly over the stone.

The gum was washed off and a mixed combination of velvet noir and litho ink was rolled on the stone using a glazed roller. The image was still slow to appear so the stone was chalked and gummed and a thin layer of asphthaltum placed.

12 proofs were taken - rolled up slowly with velour noir- the first few were quite pale so the percentage of  velour noir ink was increased so by the time I got to the last few prints there was hardly any litho ink used and it was practically 100% velour noir.
The stone was then chalked and re inked using slow deliberate rolling. A thin layer of GA was then gently dabbed on with a sponge and then dried. Here's the gummed up stone showing a vast improvement in visible image and tone density than when we first started!

The marks produced were interesting as they were not exactly like the ones drawn. The stone was left to rest and we will proof it and register it next week.