week five - the ghost of the lino

Following Rosemarie McGoldrick's comment on my post, I'm looking at the concept of Hauntology.  Initially I found a book blog in the guardian on line (www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/jun17/hauntology) which has pointed to many contemporary writers to investigate. (more of this later)

The idea of loss, absence, ghosts, also ties in with my research of Christopher Wool. Not only do his paintings incorporate the idea of mark making and rubbing out, adding and removal, addition and loss, but also he has been associated with "Process Art"  and an interest in abstract art and the process of painting.

Christopher Wool, Untitled 2003

Christopher Wool Tree Women (Light) 2005

I'm looking at a way of using the lino blocks to form etching plates, so the final prints record an absence of the original material; that is the etchings become the negative of the lino. The idea of repetition previously discussed will also be developed, with variations from one print to the other as well.

So, I am finding a way of transferring my lino block images to an etching plate. (The linos were themselves eaten away by acid - and so too will the etching plates be.)

The process:
Using the principle that oil based ink is acid resist, I relief inked a lino block, printed it onto butter paper in the wood press, used the butter paper image (still wet) and transferred it to a zinc plate via the etching press.

lino image transferred to metal

The metal plate, now with the oil based ink on it, was aquatinted, and placed in acid. So the positive lino image (now in red ink) remains untouched by the acid and therefore when intaglio printed will become a negative image.

I repeated the process with another lino plate, to get two etching plates. These were printed separately and together. I used different colours, printed them in different orders and printed them different ways up. 

These plates were printed over each other producing a layering of images and marks, ghost images of each other and negative images of the original lino plates.

plate on right,shown above, printed over brown plate on left

 plate on left shown above, printed over brown plate on  right

black on blue

Looking at Christopher Wool again, where are his marks from? Also, there is a similarity of colours in the layers of his silk screen. I'm interested in the idea of creating abstract shapes - removal of myself from the image or resultant marks, and the process I've adopted (lino through to etching) certainly creates an uncertainty of marks.

Christopher Wool Untitled 2007, silk screen

Week four - repetiton

 36 photographs and 12 diagrams

Mel Bochner at the Whitechapel Art Gallery - I find his reworking of his older pieces more interesting than his word paintings. 36 photographs and 12 diagrams photographs little wooden blocks in plan elevation and isometric, together with a corresponding diagram for each arrangement. It is a series of images,exploring repetition,  which when viewed together enable us to reconstruct the original sculpture. 

Four Smears: 1968/2010

Four smears is a process of photographing photographs, displayed in pairs of positive and negative, both in form and colour. "Photography is shown to be a process which self-produces new images rather than one which records exiting objects in from of the camera..." (Whitechapel blurb on Four Smears: 1968/2010)

Surface Dis/Tension (Recursive)

Also, Surface Dis/Tension (Recursive) 2012, where Bochner has rephotographed a wet and crumpled print investigating perspective, and hung it out to dry. He has printed it as both positive and negative again. The images have been laid on top of each other, but slightly out of kilter. 

I'm interested in his use of repetition and photography. Pushing the large lino pieces a little further, I decided to reprint them, on top of each other, but waiting for each layer to dry. Printed the first block four times to get four multiple coloured prints.

first block inked up in yellow

all four prints, first layer, in drying rack

second layer added 

I don't think the first layer was dry enough  as some of the yellow bled through. What a lengthy process!  All prints were numbered so the same order would be carried out each time. Note: registration method crucial here. (Last week's print wasn't registered properly - in particular because the lino ins't cut square). Paper was blotted between two sheets of damp tissue - tried without damping but result was no good.

third colour added

fourth/final colour

fourth/final colour with more extender

Week three part two - scale

Email correspondence with Steve Edwards - decided to change the stop out I was using to Brunswick Black. Having seen Howard Hodgkin's huge etchings at Alan Cristea's gallery over the summer, and after a conversation with Dolly Thompsett, I decided to try larger sheets of lino, to work with Brunswick Black and to remove myself from the object I was using.

These Howard Hodgkin etchings are of a vast scale - so striking. They are part of a series so the same plates are inked in different colours, often with a coloured wash added afterwards. Each print is made up of 2 to 4 sheets of paper - they must have been printed on a huge press.

I took on board Dolly's suggestion of upping the scale and used four blocks of lino butted together, each 300mm square. I dripped, sponged, scratched the Brunswick Black, added parcel tape, cracked the lino and left it to dry overnight.

4 lino plates butted up together, painted with stop out

two of the plates printed, on the drying rack

New caustic soda recipe: 200ml water, One and a half tbsp wall paper, 2 tbsp caustic soda. (Steve uses 3tbsp caustic soda). I left the sheets for 30 mins. The stop out more or less held - except the sponged areas. The parcel tape worked really well. But the lino became very bowed so didn't ink up well or run through the wood press evenly. But overall the image worked.
I inked up the four plates with relief method, using water based ink. I didn't want to remove the stop out as it contributed to the marks.
I reassembled the four prints to make one large one.

The process of working large, cutting up to small then reassembling, reminds me of the reading Andrew Hewish gave us: The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin by William S. Burroughs; cutting up and rearranging newspaper articles. So I also printed the four plates on top of each other - a further rearrangement of the images.

plates printed on top of each other, wet on wet

Week Three part one - printing

Printed the three lino plates - used relief method and intaglio method. Also combined relief and intaglio on one plate: intaglio first then carefully rolled ink over the top.
Finally printed all three plates ontop of each other, setting up a registration sheet first to make sure they aligned. Too much white showed through so the plates were printed again but first using a blank plate rolled in yellow. (Yellow blank plate, then raw umber mixed with yellow, dark raw umber, black).  Used less extender for successive plates.

relief total plate with acid

relief - 20min staged acid

relief - stop out

Paper was dampened by a spray and placed in the blotters.
Initially used the etching press but the lino slipped and the images were not sharp. Moved on to the wood press which was better.

intaglio on total plate with acid

intaglio on stop out image

intaglio on 20 min staged acid

relief - 3 plates, first plate blank

This three plate image works best for me - the tool is there, just about, like a ghost arising from the mist. It's a memory of the tool, as printmaking could be seen as a memory of the original image - whatever it was.

The other image which I'd like to work on is the 3rd intaglio plate, where a small square remains in the middle. (Plate achieved by etching over the whole thing in one go.) The material and the process start to make the final image.

Danny Rolph said I should look at ghost storis - M.R. James, and artists such as George Raoult- The Judges - apparitions. Also Frottage and Max Ernst, looking at the technicality of their work where the character of the surfaces shows through. I'm keen on Max Ernst's "Grattage" - where the canvas was placed over a texture and paint scraped over it. Chance happenings. I will pursue that in print.

Week Two - Acid!

10th October
Preparing the image for transfer to lino - unlike photo etching you don't need to have a negative image. What is black on the photocopy will be black on the lino and not be etched. 

Using a photograph I've taken of wire cutters, manipulated on photoshop for enhancement of contrast, printed as grey scale, photocopied for photocopy litho transfer to lino. 

B&W photo used for transfer

This method works with acid etch of zinc plates, as the oil based ink is acid resist. I'm not sure it will work with lino so I'm doing some test plates. 

Soak the photocopy image for a couple of minutes. Place on worktop and dab oil based ink, mixed with plate oil on with a sponge. Experience has told me you don't need to dab very much - just so a surface of ink shows, and so that the sponge marks are retained. The black of the photocopy ink absorbs the oil ink mixture, the white paper has a film of water on it and therefore repels the ink. So, what is black on the photocopy picks up the ink, ready for transfer, using the press, onto my lino sheet.

I did this 3 times to get my test plates.

Caustic Soda - (made at home, in the garden, next to the garden hose in case it all went horribly wrong and I had to be hosed down. I donned protective clothing, mask, goggles, rubber gloves - no chances taken. I also didn't want to do it in the studio as I wasn't sure what the results would be and how I might effect my fellow students!)
Recipe: Jam jar filled one third with water
2 teaspoons wallpaper glue flakes. Stir with wooden implement (chopsticks in my case) and leave to thicken for 5 mins.
2 teaspoons of caustic soda crystals. Stir. Leave to heat up.
Paint onto lino with brush.

Litho transfer to lino

first 20 mins of acid

acid painted on in one go

Two images used the oil based ink as acid resist. The third image I painted and sponged over the image with stop out. First image was painted with acid mix leaving on for 20 minute increments up to one hour. Second and third image acid was left on for 20 mins.

lino where image was painted using stop out

three plates acid washed off

Results: the ink didn't resist the acid at all. The stop out hardly resisted the acid either - so clearly need a stronger stop out and possibly weaker acid. The lino in all cases seemed bitten through far too much. However, I will still be printing them to see what the effects are.

Week One - Back Story

Steve Edwards Blackfriars - West

I was invited  to the exhibition "Image of the City" at the Hightgate gallery of Printroom London, (www.printroomlondon.com) , where Steve Edwards (www.steveedwardsart.com) gave a short talk about the method he used for his lino prints - essentially an acid etch for lino, using caustic soda, together with traditional cut lino plates. Intrigued by the intedeterminancy that this acid method produces, I set out to try it myself.

For the moment I will continue to look at the image of  tools, their reference to DIY and craft, and how their image relates directly to process. I've been reading Richard Sennett;The Craftsman, and Peter Dormer; The Culture of Craft, both lamenting the loss and value of true skill and craftsmanship. The idea that by mastering technical skills artwork develops  - the physical and manual co-exist - is what interests my printmaking practice. It would be very difficult to talk about printmaking without talking about process, so this may well be the subject of my work.

Ian Davenport Citric Etching

I also want to look at digital manipulation and its use in the traditional etching process. More of that later, but I visited Alan Cristea's gallery, where Ian Davenport has his etchings. Again, it is the transferring of one process to another, to another, to finally realise his image. He paints first,      photographs the painting, divides it into colours (presumably on photoshop) and transfers these colour separated images onto separate etching plates. (Every 3rd colour is on the same plate). Several plates are used to form one image.




I'm interested in having one image separated into colours, using aquatint and printing on top of each other so the colours merge but the image is moved away from its original photograph. 

So, investigating process, tools with which to initiate the process, digital manipulation. The image of the object may indeed become superfluous, or become a memory - the work may record the absence of the tool.