[Baren] Daily Digest

Today's postings

[Baren 34942] Exchange #35 update... ("Mike Lyon")
[Baren 34943] Re: Carving fruitwood (Tiberiu Chelcea)
[Baren 34944] Re: New Baren Digest (HTML) V42 #4213 (Jan 31, 2008) (Lynn Starun)
[Baren 34945] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification (Blog Manager)

Message 1
From: "Mike Lyon"
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:26:27 -0600
Subject: [Baren 34942] Exchange #35 update...
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Exchange #35 participants - PLEASE submit your print details (for colophon)
here: http://barenforum.org/exchange/exchange_35/exchangedetails.html

Current status of Exchange #35 (Fairy Tale editions originally due tomorrow
now extended to Feb 8, 2008):

received 01/22/2008: Claudia G Coonen

received 01/22/2008: Aya Rosen

received 01/25/2008: Barbara Patera

received 01/26/2008: John Center

received 01/28/2008: Tiberiu Chelcea

received 01/28/2008: Lana Lambert

received 01/28/2008: Connie Pierson

received 01/28/2008: Steffan Ziegler

received 01/30/2008: Peter Kocak

received 01/30/2008: Jennifer Schmitt

not received: Viza Arlington

not received: Chris Blank

not received: Barbara Carr

not received: Robert Swain Charles

not received: Diane Cutter

not received: Michael Gaffney

not received: Gillyin Gatto

not received: Mary Grassell

not received: Annette Haines

not received: George Jarvis

not received: Tom Kristensen

not received: Sharen Linder

not received: Ivan Locke

not received: Mike Lyon

not received: Bobette Mccarthy

not received: Rahman Mohamed

not received: Mellissa Read-Devine

not received: Julio Rodriguez

not received: Ned Rosen

not received: Sylvia Taylor

not received: Robert Viana

I'll be travelling tomorrow through Sunday, so my next update will be Monday
or Tuesday - deadline for delivery is Friday Feb 8 (a week from tomorrow)!

Mike

Mike Lyon
Kansas City, MO
http://mlyon.com/blog

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Message 2
From: Tiberiu Chelcea
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 07:02:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Baren 34943] Re: Carving fruitwood
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> RE gesso on a block - wouldn't it make a thickish layer to cut through??

Not really. If you spread it with a foam brush, you can achive a very thin layer, which can be further reduced when sanding the gesso to a very even surface. In fact, one of the reasons gesso is used to coat canvases is because it's elastic, which, in our case, makes it easier to cut through.
Another advantage of gesso is that it's easy to see the cutting marks, it's white contrasts nicely with the color of the wood.

> I always coat my blocks with a very thin white gouache -it shows up
> my black pen drawn designs and I imagine would be good for
> transferred printed ones /and or carbon tracings, etc

A block covered with gesso is perfect for being drawn with a pencil (that's how I do a lot of blocks, draw directly on the gesso coated block). Many old artists were drawing on gesso'd block, including with silverpoint. Toner transfers and carbon tracings also work very well.
To show some texture (although not the 'natural' one), one can spread the gesso with a bristle brush, which leaves painterly marks on the surface. Don't sand the block, carve it as usual; to print, roll the ink thinly with a hard brayer -- it would show some of those marks in the print. It's not a very reliable method though, but can be interesting.

> For hardening a softish wood several coats of white shellac diluted
> with about 50% alchohol works well and for harder woods, coating both sides
> with boiled linseed oil (letting it dry before cutting is also good

Maybe I should try this method too, it seems like the best of both worlds: a hardened, less splinter-prone surface that still shows the grain.

Tibi

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Message 3
From: Lynn Starun
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:47:27 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [Baren 34944] Re: New Baren Digest (HTML) V42 #4213 (Jan 31, 2008)
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Hi All,
I'm struggling along with my rat print. Things are
going way better once I gave up on the MDF.

Then I went through a wild attempt at a William Blake
relief etching on copper which did work out pretty
well in some ways. The problem was that I tried to
avoid the undercutting of the ferric chloride by
expanding my lines and areas like I had read that
Blake did by painting just outside each line and area
and it worked but the result was these sort of ledges
which caught the ink when I was rolling it on. Not
only that but my ink wasn't working so well.

So after a period of grief I got out a nice piece of
shina and started over for the third time.

My question is, what is the trick to getting larger
black areas on the keyblock to print solidly. I have
found if I print a second time with black it works but
it is slowing me down. I have tried using more paste
but that doesn't seem to completely solve the problem.
Do most of you all get success with the first
application? If I use so much paste to overcome the
graininess then it looks to me like paint/paste is
building up in the recessed areas. So I also blotted
the plate a few times along the way through my stack
of prints. I belatedly counted the number of people
on the exchange and found it was nearly 60 so I'm
going to be printing a bunch more and would love to do
a better and more efficient job!
Lynn

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Message 4
From: Blog Manager
Date: 1 Feb 2008 04:55:30 -0000
Subject: [Baren 34945] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification
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Baren Archives

[Baren] - the International Forum for Woodblock Printmaking

Volume: 42 / Number: 4214

Friday, 1st of February, 2008

Today's postings

End of [Baren] Digest