Baren Digest Tuesday, 28 January 2003 Volume 22 : Number 2110 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: G Wohlken Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 09:03:54 +0000 Subject: [Baren 20559] High Tech Art, Paper Moistening Notes of a Hanga Novice >First I >'posterize' the photo, then use the Noise/Median filter to remove artifacts >of posterization too small to carve. > >Originally I was using Photoshop in order to more quickly develop custom >color pallets for tilings and tiled paintings and to output Raw image data >for input and manipulation in Excel spreadsheet (after converting the raw >values into ascii csv format for Excel to read using programs I wrote for >the purpose). > >After the 'Median' filter I use the 'threshold' function to separate and >print each individual color layer. > >- -- Mike Man, Mike, that all sounds so high tech. All I worry about is can I get three colors to register. And the way things are looking, I can't quite cut it (heh). An odd thing happened yesterday when I was dampening the good paper for the hanga exchange. I had them moistening in a stack for an hour, then I separated them to overlap them. Well, one sheet seemed unusually thick, or so I thought. I tried separating it into what I imagined were two sheets stuck together, and ended up with two very see-through thin sheets of paper. How can that be? Has this ever happened to anyone? I'm somewhat new to dampened paper, and I'm making the most terrible job of it, tiring myself out trying to understand everything as written up in the Baren Encyclopedia. My new concern is how do I manage that many sheets of moistened paper on the table where I work. I put all the leaves in the kitchen table (an old oak table handed down from my husband's grandmother) and that pile of dampened paper in its big plastic bag takes up half of it, it seems. Now where am I going to put them when they are printed if the unprinted sheets take that much room? The rest of the table holds the pigment, spray bottle for water, the baren, etc. Looks like I have to use the kitchen counter, too. It doesn't seem to take this much room to do oil based. Dave's little printmaking area, so organized and everything right at hand--it looks easy, but when I try to do it, I'm spread from one end of the kitchen to the other. I'll figure it out before the day's over, but it's interesting how monumental each task seems when it's a task we are unaccustomed to. Gayle in Ohio > > ------------------------------ From: G Wohlken Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 10:01:46 +0000 Subject: [Baren 20560] A Question for Mike I'm making a habit of these double postings. I was going to write to Mike privately, but then thought maybe everyone would like to hear his answer. Mike, on your website under the heading of Woodcuts (http://www.mlyon.com/), there is the image of the Mother and Child. I read your explanation, which was clear, and interesting. I notice you said you printed this on unsized gampi paper. I thought hanga had to be printed on sized paper. Could you explain how you were able to do this? Gayle in Ohio ------------------------------ From: Mike Lyon Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 09:38:36 -0600 Subject: [Baren 20561] Re: A Question for Mike At 10:01 AM 1/27/2003 +0000, you wrote: >I'm making a habit of these double postings. I was going to write to Mike >privately, but then thought maybe everyone would like to hear his >answer. Mike, on your website under the heading of Woodcuts >(http://www.mlyon.com/), there is the image of the Mother and Child. I >read your explanation, which was clear, and interesting. I notice you >said you printed this on unsized gampi paper. I thought hanga had to be >printed on sized paper. Could you explain how you were able to do this? > >Gayle in Ohio The print Gayle is asking about is here: http://www.mlyon.com/prints/relief/madonna.htm My answer is, "I can't really explain it." That paper came from McClain's http://www.imcclains.com/catalog/paper.html#groupa and is described as P6806 Gampi - NTL, 20 x 30, not sized, 96gms/m2, 100% gampi, $11.60 in single quantity. I was hoping that by printing very 'dry', the colors would bleed into one another only a little bit, but not too much. My experience with most other "unsized" papers is that the pigment feathers or bleeds outside the area printed by the block. If you don't know what I mean, put a drop of dilute ink/water mixture onto blotter paper (or toilet paper) and see what happens. But that didn't happen at all with this paper. The pigment stayed right where it was printed regardless of how wet or dry I printed. In addition, there were random areas of the paper which almost REFUSED to accept ink at all -- exactly as if those areas had been over-sized! So I imagine there may have been some 'secret' ingredient added to the pulp bath (like glue or glue/alum?) to make the paper behave as if it were sized without requiring an extra step after drying and prior to printing. McClain's P6806 gampi paper really is a beautiful looking and feeling paper, very soft and lustrous, but it does have variations in thickness throughout each sheet (due to presence of clumps of fibers) which make it difficult (maybe impossible) to get even penetration of color throughout (and there is substantial variation between individual sheets, too). You can see these variations when you hold the sheets up to the light -- they show up as lighter and darker areas of the sheet -- try this on your own papers -- for generic printing, more homogenous is usually better. I used another "unsized" paper from McClain's, their P6807 Inomachi - WHT, 22 x 30, not sized, 180gms/m2, 100% kozo, $30.00 per single sheet which also printed as you would expect a sized paper to print -- this paper has a very marked texture -- thicker in places and thinner in others so that printing it naturally leads to a mottled effect like very large goma, no matter how energetically you press the baren into the paper. My print, "Blue Robe" was printed on that paper http://www.mlyon.com/prints/relief/blue_robe.htm and the paper texture does add to the "painterly" effect, I think... I suppose a call to McClain's might answer your question better -- I'll forward a copy of this email to them and see whether they can offer a 'real' explanation. All I can offer is this anecdotal sort of I did 'this' and 'that' happened evidence... - -- Mike PS -- I can assure you, though, that normally 'unsized' papers DO exhibit bleeding and feathering around the areas which were printed, resulting in color haloes -- usually very pronounced... Mike Lyon mailto:mikelyon#mlyon.com http://www.mlyon.com ------------------------------ From: Julio.Rodriguez#walgreens.com Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 12:56:07 -0600 Subject: [Baren 20562] Re: High Tech Art, Paper Moistening Notes of a Hanga Novice Gayle writes: ".....and that pile of dampened paper in its big plastic bag takes up half of it, it seems. Now where am I going to put them when they are printed if the unprinted sheets take that much room? " The paper stack for this exchange should only be approximately 5.5" X 15.5" depending on what size you cut the sheets. That's not much bigger than the size of a footlong submarine sandwich !. I don't bother overlapping them while printing.....so my stack does not take up too much space....after printing each sheet it goes in another stack to the right of me... If I do overlap them....it is usually just a little while during the "let's-get-the-paper-moist" period.....and then I only overlap them by about 1/2" or so.....then I bring them together into one single stack for printing... Julio ------------------------------ From: marilyn portteus Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:30:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Baren 20563] address removal please please remove my e-mail address from your list: thenk you veddy kindly... ------------------------------ From: "Ignasi Serrahima" Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 10:10:19 +0100 Subject: [Baren 20564] Intro Dear friends, Majordomo asked me to write a brief note to introduce myself in joining the group, so here it goes: (Ah, by the way! My congratulations to David Bull on an excellent work and website!) My name is Ignasi Serrahima. I live in Madrid, Spain, and did my first linocut at the age of fourteen (a monochrome print of a rose and a book; I thought it would be romantic to give it to a girl I liked, but she didn't really appreciate the clumsiness of it all, I'm afraid... Oh well!). After that I've been carving on and off until I quit about 8 years ago; basically, I didn't know what to do with the prints, as I don't do this professionally. So I submerged fully into watercolour painting. I had my first exhibition late last year here in Madrid, and I thought it went pretty well. But I've always had in my mind going back to relief printing, and I thought I'd take woodblock this time, but, alas!, I'm married now and live in a small appartment flat, so I had to reach a compromise with my wife and put off wood carving until we move to a bigger place (well, I'll keep trying...). So back to linoleum! I've done 3 multicoloured prints so far and working on the fourth. I also have a (modest) collection of Meiji period ukiyo-e, so I know who my masters are... Anyway, I think that was long enough for now. I'm very interested in becoming part of the [Baren] community, as I'm still a learner, and also because I'd like to share my prints (I've never had any expectations of making a living out of this, and I think the exchange thing is a great idea). I'll try to post my prints somewhere, so that you guys can see if you like them and criticise my technique! Oh, and one question: does anyone know any baren suppliers in Europe? Regards, Ignasi Serrahima Madrid (Spain) End of Baren Digest V22 #2110 *****************************