Wooo It's Friday!!

I have finally completed Lithography!

After leaving the Gum Arabic to do its work on my limestone, yesterday I was finally able to start my edition of prints.

After positioning the stone on the press and selecting the right size bar, I began to prepare my stone for inking.  The same process as I used for the first etch - apply white spirits to be left with a negative image, followed by asphaltum, buff down with a cloth, apply the water with a sponge and get ready to ink up!  The stone has to be kept moist at all times during inking, should never ink on a dry stone.  So I had my little helper Grawnya with me who helped with the washing of the stone whilst I inked up.

Following this, paper was placed on top of the inked up image.  Once the paper is down, it cannot be moved so you have to pretty accuarate with it when it comes to initially laying it down.  A layer of newsprint was next followed by the sheet of tympan which had to have grease applied to the top so that it would slide through the press easily.

Getting the hang of the press at first was hard.  I was used to the manual press, where you roll the stone through yourself.  If you ever want to work out your upper arms then spinning the wheel on a printing press is perfect for toning!  But for my actual print I had to use a motorised printing press.  Using magnets, this press will stop once the top of the stone goes under the bar, leaving you to pull down the arm of the press to apply the correct pressure needed to print your image.  The press will stop again because of magnets once the end of the stone meets the bar.  This all makes sure that both the press and the stone dont get damaged during the printing process.

The first two prints I did came out quite faint so I knew then to "charge" the roller and apply much more ink in the printing of my edition.

So after re-applying ink, I was able to produce dark tones - exactly what I wanted for my edition.

I liked how the prints came out and how the edges disappear off the sides of the sheet rather then just hang there.  If I had had more time I would have liked to have done another colour over it so it's an idea for the future!

On an end note, I spent all of first year giving out that I had nothing to do everyday; there was no structure to the course; I had too much free time; I wasnt learning etc.  After just a month in second year I realise just how good I had it! To say this course is hectic and jam-packed is pretty accurate.  There's always something that needs to be done.  There will always be some late nights staying up to do extra work.  There will always be long days and last minute rushing to get work done.  But I think I'm finally starting to come around to its crazy ways.

Starting Intaglio next week so weekend of brain storming and composition work ahead!