Monday 30 November 2009

Zine Artist Book Fair





We will be having a stall at the Zine fair on the 29th and 30th January just to give you all a heads up come and spend your Christmas money from Santa on some original prints and artist books supporting local artists!

http://www.zinefair.com/

Mini Print Exhibition



We are taking part in the Mini Print Exhibition at Artlink, Hull! Check it out!

Mini Print website to come soon...

Monday 16 November 2009

Carborundum Demonstration

Thank you to all who attended the Hot Bed Press Open Studios this weekend.
We hope are demonstration on expressive printmaking with Carborundum has inspired you in one way or another!




Sunday 8 November 2009

Four Colour Separations



This week we have been busy people with Thursday at the Bluecoat and Friday at Hot Bed Press.

Whilst Hannah got to grips with the Carborundum ready for our demo at Chapel Street Open Studios next weekend (more on this later) I gave gum arabic four colour separations a whirl. We loved the results and decided to experiment further with this and so the next day with guidance from the master of Gum Arabic Justin Sanders we both produced some amazing prints for our first trial of the process. Sometimes referred to as paper lithography, this method of printmaking uses photocopies saturated with gum arabic. The ink of the photocopy attracts the ink on the roller and can then be printed. Four Colour Seperations involves inking up the CMYK layers of an image separately then overlaying them.

We will be entering these images to the mini print exhibition in York.

Carborundum Print


Gum Arabic Four Colour Separation






Monday 2 November 2009

Open Skill Swap: Carborundum



From Emma to Hannah to North West Printmakers

On Thursday we offered the first of hopefully many skill swapping sessions to Printmakers in the North West. The free demonstration took place at The Bluecoat Liverpool and gave an insight into Carborundum Printmaking.

We had a great afternoon experimenting with various styles of application and the participants produced some great work even with slight problems with little drying time for the varnish!







Thank you to all those that attended if you would be interested in future workshops please send us your details.

Skill Swap: Wax Encaustic

From Emma to Hannah,


This is not directly a printing technique but print is different process for print to be explored.

Encaustic Painting is using wax (beeswax) and applying it to a surface (wood) fusing it with a heating element(iron)

Using the encaustic as an adhesive a variety of materials inc thin papers such as dress patterns can be drawn/printed onto and then encased onto the surface. Other materials that work well are tissue, maps, bleached paper.



A thank you here is to Laura Deem who introduced Emma to the technique in California, USA

Skill Swap: Drypoint Card


Hannah introduced Emma to the Drypoint Card. A marval!!

The card can be scrapped/ cut/ scored into and then treated as a intaglio print.
Quick, easy and a fun material for Intaglio printing!

Skill Swap: Gum Arabic


From Hannah to Emma,

The transferring of a photocopied image using Gum Arabic solution.

Process involves applying the Gum Arabic with a sponge, rolling ink over the top, and again applying the gum Arabic.

Putting this through the press transfers the image as the Gum Arabic is drawn to the dark areas f the photocopy and so the ink attracted to the wax areas. A great technique that i will be using and developing more in the future. A four colour split of CMYK can be produced which gives fantastic results.

Another way of using the Gum Arabic is to draw an image with crayon and similar to the photocopy it is drawn to the dark areas.

Skill Swap: Copper Sulphate

Our collaborating began with skill swapping sessions between the two of us to widen our knowledge of Printmaking techniques.

Our first skill swap was from Hannah to Emma in Etching with Copper Sulphate:

Hannah clearly taught the method of the safer etching process and how to apply the various grounds

Covering Soft and Hard Resist using Graphic Chemical Water Based Block Printing Ink.



Here we have experimented with different tools including crayon, needles, pens to compare results. Using this as a hard ground was easier to see what you where drawing onto however as a soft ground it gave good faint lines.


Using Hard Resist with Lascaux. here we scrapped into the resist with a needle. The copper sulphate bit these lines well however the hard resist made it difficult to see where to draw into.


Here we used The Bluecoats answer to aquatint spraying acrylic resist with the use of an airbrush and compressor. Drawing on top of the aquatint with various materials including crayons, lard, Lascaux hard ground. Testing the copper sulphate to see how long to leave the plate etching for the tone we wanted. this plate was etched for around 10minutes.