I am what I call an OCD printer. My studio and my house stay pretty messy at at all times, but when it comes to printing an edition, things get complicated. The added prep work to my shared printshop makes edition printing a rare thing. Sometimes, it takes years for me to get around to it. This is what happened this weekend, when a large order of prints came in from out of town, including a print that I finished in college, but had never printed the full edition.
Sunday, I got up early, showered, ate a protein-packed breakfast, and headed over to BYO to get started. I run BYO Print as a small community printshop, so different folks are always working in the shop, and you’ll never know what kind of residues are left on the glass tables. To be thorough, I scraped any dried ink or other gook off the glass with a sharp razor blade, then scrubbed the glass with vinegar followed by glass cleaner. There was plenty of invisible gook on that table! Most of what was there would probably have not affected my inking or the print, but remember, I’m an OCD printer.
Connie, our little workhorse, and a shiny clean inking station behind it.
Next, I spread out all of my supplies for inking on the glass. This includes the plate, freshly cleaned and polished, two cans of ink I will mix from, a flexible putty knife, a plastic ink spreader, a phone book, a handful of Q-tips, and three pieces of tarlatan (clean, a little used, and very used). I keep ink and tarlatan on my left (left-handed), and the Q-Tips and phone book paper on my right, with a blank space and the plate in the middle.
Next, before I get inky, I wash my hands (you’ll do this over and over again), pull out my pre-torn pieces of paper (Arches Cover White, my favorite, 11″ by 15″), and stack up 6 wooden drying racks (homemade) with the clean paper stack on top. I use a large, shallow plastic tub with a lid I found at IKEA for my water bath, which is needed to soak the paper in while you’re inking the plate, so it can grab all the ink and transfer it to the paper better. I’m printing an edition of 12, so I pull three pieces of paper and put them into my bath with my handy paper grabbers (also homemade).
Two pieces of thin stainless steel, with rounded and sanded corners and a tape hinge, about 1.5" by 2.5." You'll need two.
Use the grabbers whenever you’re handling your paper for an edition. Even if your hands are clean, the oil from your fingers could potentially leave a mark on your paper, and it is essential that your paper stays clean as a whistle. With the grabbers, insert one piece of paper at a time into the bath, poking it with the grabber to submerge it and remove any bubbles on the surface of the paper. Insert each piece under the last one, but staggered away from each other, so they have a nice buffer of water to themselves. With a big bath and several gallons of water, you could put all 12 sheets in at once to keep from needing to repeat this step once you’ve gotten started. The length of time won’t affect how much ink comes off of the plate unless the time difference is drastic, say, 10 minutes versus 10 hours. But, I am an OCD printer, so it’s three sheets at a time for me. (In college, I did one at a time, so each sheet was in the bath for the time it took to ink and wipe a plate. I was nuts!) Put a lid on your paper bath if you’re in a warehouse studio, or somewhere that dust or bugs could land in your bath; ick!
Back to the etching press, it’s essential that you use some kind of registration guide to place your plate and paper in the same place with each pass. I recommend a sheet of mylar/acetate/clear plastic. Draw the outer paper frame on the plastic, then find your location for the plate and draw that too. Use a thin-tip sharpie. If you can’t figure out where to place your plate, here is some math: Subtract the width of the plate from the width of the paper (11″-4″ ) and halve it (3.5″) Now, your side borders are each 3.5″, mark a line at 3.5″ in from the left and right. Also mark 3.5″ from the top. Using a clean plate as a guide, line up the plate and trace around it, so that your plate is centered from the top and sides, and has a longer border on the bottom. The extra space at the bottom is for your signature, title, date, and edition info. Flip your registration guide over and tape it directly onto the press bed. Keep the tape beyond your paper border, or you will have an impression on each print from the tape.
Sharpie goes on the underside so you don't wipe it away as you clean the plastic after each pass.
Now, we are finally ready to get inky! Head back to your inking station, and get your ink ready. I use a 50/50 mix of bone black and raw umber for this series of etchings, which looks earthy black, it’s perfect against the slightly creamy white of Arches Cover. (Rives BFK white is MUCH brighter.) I recommend using tubes of ink, even though I have cans here. There’s no waste from ink drying on the top of the can. Another ick. With the putty knife, mix the ink together until it’s creamy, like thick peanut butter. Put on gloves. Using the plastic ink spreader (matboard or cardboard work too), take a dollop of ink and spread a thin coat over the entire plate. From here until the very end, the plate should always be on the table when you’re wiping. Never hold it in your hand and wipe it! Ever! You’ll never have consistent pressure.
With your dirtiest tarlatan, form it into a ball with a flat portion against the plate, and in circular movements, wipe a layer of ink off of the plate, pushing down as you go. Pick up your hands with each circle; we’re not buffing a floor! After two full passes around the plate with the dirty tarlatan, I wipe around the beveled edges with a Q-tip to remove lots of excess ink. Without doing this, that ink will keep getting pulled onto your plate and create smears. (I recommend burnishing your beveled edged before editioning so they’re smooth and don’t hold ink.)
Don't be afraid to hold the opposite corner of your plate, or move it around for the easiest wipe. Maintain even coverage!
After I’ve cleaned the edges, I take off my gloves, and move the plate onto a piece of phone book paper. The paper grips the plate and keeps it from moving around, and there isn’t extra ink around it on the table to rub back onto the plate. With the middle piece of tarlatan, I do a few more passes around the plate (will depend on how oily your ink is or if you have lots of aquatint place on the plate). I’m putting barely any downward pressure on the plate now, and mostly looking to lose all of those swirly lines from ink wipes. Move to the cleanest tarlatan piece, and go over once more, barely touching it. I use my finger tips to hold the tarlatan ball, rather than held in my palm, to keep the pressure light. Then, I Q-Tip the edges again to a clean polish. Be sure to not accidentally rub the plate or you’ll have a super shiny spot there!
Be sure the edges stay clean!
If you think it’s needed, you can do a quick flat wipe with a single piece of phone book paper. Don’t crumple it, but instead rub it very gently and fast across the whole plate, without any pressure. This will pick any remaining plate tone but won’t go into the grooves. Practice, this is a delicate step.
Once the plate is wiped fully, place it on the bed in it’s spot, make sure that the top is in the right place.If you got ink on the bed from your fingers or from positioning the plate, wipe it clean with a Q-Tip. Re-wipe the edges if needed. (OCD)
So fresh and so clean!
Go wash your hands. Thoroughly. I keep a nail brush and an old toothbrush at the sink to get myself as clean as possible. Keep a separate towel to dry your hands, so there isn’t anything on the towel to rub back onto your hands. Using your paper grabber, lift the top sheet (which has been in the longest) out of the bath, letting the excess water drip off (a second or two between drops). Next, to blot the paper a bit drier, sandwich it between two pieces of blotter paper, or between a towel, with newsprint between the towel and the wet paper (to prevent lint from attaching to the paper). I made a heavy roller out of an old replacement roller from a Heidelberg Press. I roll this across the towels/blotter (like rolling out dough) and push down to squeeze out water from the paper and into the towel or blotter.
Use two hands!
Pick up the paper with your two paper grabbers, on opposite sides, and look at the paper itself. Each side is different. The side with the slight crisscross impression is the mold from making the paper, and is the back. The front is all soft, organic texture. Place the soft, non-grid front down facing the plate on the press bed. I let the corners fall first so I can line up the paper where it should be. Don’t nudge the paper once it’s down or you could smear ink. Instead, if you need to re-position it, pull up one side so it isn’t against the plate when it’s moving. Once it’s in the right place, cover it completely with a piece of newsprint. Lay each of the blankets down over the press, so that there aren’t any wrinkles. Any extra water in the paper will get absorbed by the newsprint, and keep the felt blankets dry.
Layers:registration guide, plate, paper (front down), newsprint, and your three felts.
Next, turn your wheel and pull hard! Don’t stop mid way or the pressure could sit at one spot on your plate and mess it up! Phew! My little Connie is a direct drive press, so it’s really hard to turn with full pressure on for printing intaglio!
But it's so worth it in the end.
Once the bed is through, pull the blankets over and remove the newsprint. You’ll see the emboss from the plate in the paper, which should be even all around. Use your paper grabbers to lift up the paper from once side, and take a peek! Your print should be perfectly wiped, perfectly centered, and without a fingerprint or smudge to be seen! Place the print on the first of your wooden rack (or drying rack if you’re so fancy!)
Perfection!
Move the plate back to the inking station, and wipe the ink from the back of the plate off of the registration. I use a cloth with a teeny bit of spirits soaked in it, and then buff clean with a dry paper towel. You can also just use the paper towel without the solvent. It’s essential that no residue from the spirits or the ink are left on the plastic outside of the plate area!
Repeat! I printed twelve of Blessed, took a lunch and tea break, came back and printed an edition of 6 of Sprawl in the same ink, plus two of Drawer Pull in a bluish grey ink that I will hand-color. A full day’s work, and a job well done!
A long time coming! This plate has been waiting 4 years to be editioned!
wow thanks for the detailed tour through the process
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