Thursday 10/10/19 - Introduction to printing

Tuesday

Today we were given an introduction on how to do mono-printing. We had to print out black and white copies of a few different photos from previously in the course.

I chose four (pictured above) from the margate trip last week, this was because of how recent they were and because of what the images contained. They had fairly simple but detailed enough designs to come out well as a print.

The first test was done with the neon sign, this was using purely black paint. The problem I faced was that I pressed down on the paper in the wrong areas meaning it turned out very messy. However this was only the first attempt, next was the one of dreamland. This time I was especially careful not to press down on the paper, it turned out significantly better but the lines weren't neat and it felt a bit too empty.

Next were some colour tests, these were done with the jukebox and dreamland arcade photos. For these the problem was in the paint itself because they were too oily. It made printing come out in a very poor quality, this left both tests looking messy with a lot of white spots and blotches. So I know not to use such oily paints in future.

Thursday

Today was lino printing, it involved cutting into small squares and rolling ink into them. This meant the ink wouldn't touch the cut parts and leave a certain print when pressed against paper. I used one photo for this, the one taken at dreamland used previously on Tuesday. First I traced it on tracing paper and then I placed it on the square to cut, this left a mark from the pencil granite. Cutting was difficult when it came to precision, I found it hard to cut out curves and smaller sections. When it came to printing the first test didn't have enough ink, it looked alright but had too many white marks on it from the paper. The second had more ink and turned out better though there was room for improvement. I would like to use a more complicated design in future that takes up more space.

Conclusion

Despite the tests not being massive successes, I still definitely want to explore this in future. I like the method and think that I can create something that looks good if I get practice and learn more technique in future.