Seeing the Light

Ten years ago, when we lived in Buffalo, I took a side job delivering newspapers in the southeast corner of the city, a somewhat rough and rundown area called, ironically, Lovejoy. I'd deliver my route somewhere around four or five in the morning, just the darkest time. I saw some crazy things in that neighborhood, as the drunks stumbled home, the skunks roamed for a snack. But the solitude of that hour was calming. The houses with the droopy window eyes, the yawning garage doors, the whole world lulled to slumber by the lonely howl of a train off in the distant railyard. Or maybe I'm remembering Snoopy as the World's War I flying ace in "Great Pumpkin." Anyway, one day I had to go to that neighborhood during the day. I couldn't find my way around -- the garish colors of the houses, rotted roofs and torn sidewalks that we're rubbed out and faded by the charcoal of night's dark. Daylight sure has it's beauty, of course. But the dark of night offers a glorious pallet, and a warmth of its own

Seen here, three pools of color, trying for the perfect one. Sometimes you have to go on faith. Reduction printmaking is deep on faith -- you never no if it will work out until the end.

Intermission

In the middle of a marathon to finish the last three colors of the drive-in print, and thought I'd take a minute to talk about color.

Color is very important to me, as an artist and as someone who likes to eat and sleep under a roof (I'm an ink technician for a printing company by trade). I almost gave up on reduction printing a few years ago because I couldn't get the colors to do what I wanted them to (see http://nappingcat.blogspot.com/2010/04/fresh-print-doonagore-castle.html for an example). One can often tell a reduction print by the muted, muddied colors that are the result of colors affecting the colors printed over them. Instead of giving up, I've made it my mission to overcome this issue.

One of the things I do before starting a print is to get a good idea of the colors I will be using. I then mix some test colors, overprinting them to see how they play off each other. I use screen printing to do this step, so the results are not necessarily transferable to woodcut. But it does give me a pretty good idea of what I want the final color to look like. Once I start printing with a block, I usually print one or two extra pieces, so that I can use them as color proofs.

The picture to the right is my color palette for my next print. Any guesses on what the subject might be?

I Blue It

HA! That's what I get. yesterday, I was feeling quite confident: The colors were vibrant, the register dead-on. I was once again, in my mind, the Bad Boy of Block Printing. Then I went home to find that I am actually the Boy of BAD Block Printing.


Okay, that's a harsh self criticism, and I have already completed the post-mortem to find what went wrong. And, to my credit, I did stop after I saw the first horrible, horrible print.


That dark color you see in the print, that's actually a beautiful Ultramarine Blue. Do not adjust your monitor. Yes, it is comparable to Portland Black...when printed over something, like, say, scarlet. The reason, of course, is that the ultramarine is as clear as water. What annoys me is a) I've done this exact thing before [some nine years ago] and b) I saw how transparent it was on the plate.


So, I have done some research, and have found a way to get the results. Stay tuned for that in coming days.


I was also surprised that the ink wasn't covering as nice as previous layers. Remember what I said about drying times yesterday? Well, I guess I was right on that.

So, I'm coming away a bit smarter (hope it sticks with me this time). However, as the ink technician and "color expert" for a commercial printing company, I sure do feel like a doofus.

Primary Focus

In the coming posts, you will be seeing a huge difference in prints, primarily the colors. After a lot of R&D, I have found that using just the four process colors (magenta, cyan, yellow and black, not only can I make any color I need, but the colors are more vibrant.

Until this point, I have been using a shelf of mostly opaque inks which worked well for reduction prints, in which each successive color is printed on top of previous colors.

I've abandoned that method for the traditional multiple block method, in which each color is printed from a separate block. This means that, for the most part, each color will sit in one layer on the paper, providing true vibrancy and true color representation.