Students' Collagraphs

        This summer my classes produced some particularly pleasing collagraphs, and I’d like to share a few.  For a refresher on the definition and techniques of collagraph, check out this previous post.  I’ve given students a variety of materials to use over the years, ranging from classes in which anything goes, including dried leaves, and scraps of every imaginable textured material, to classes who used nothing but puff paint.  This year’s provided materials were basically puff paint, craft foam, and corrugated paper.  This first picture is a sampler I created to demonstrate the effects the different materials could have.

   1. printing styrofoam (the kind usually used by kids too young for carving tools)

   2. a foam sheet that came wrapped around some books I ordered

   3. corrugated paper

   4. textured mat board

   5. craft foam

   6. crumpled paper

   a. puff paint (atop the types of foam, and on the base board)

   b. pressing into the two types of foam with a pencil

        This first piece made particularly nice use of the puff paint on top of craft foam.  I like the effect of the white shadow around the raised paint, contrasting with the more clearly visible edges of the craft foam shapes.

        The artist of the second piece made the unusual choice of building the bird's outlines with narrow strips of craft foam, instead of drawing them with the puff paint.  The wing is a larger foam shape, but only its outlines show because two stripes of corrugated paper were glued on top.  Its charm is in its simplicity.

        And finally, a duck that uses the variety of materials especially well.  The wing is corrugated paper, and the reeds long strips of cardboard that got a little crumpled or bent.  The water is the packing foam, and the white speckles on the duck’s body are indented into the craft foam with a pencil point.  It printed so clearly in part because instead of gluing the wing on top of the body, this artist fit the shape of the wing into a space on the body like a puzzle piece.  That means that all the raised areas are raised to roughly the same level, thus getting inked more consistently and printing more uniformly.

        I think I’ve finally found the right balance of materials to give the kids some options to stretch their creativity, while ensuring that all the materials used are stable enough to make successfully printable blocks.

[Pictures: Collagraph material sampler, by AEGN, 2018;

Flower vase, collagraph by EK, 2018;

Bird, collagraph by K F-K, 2018;

Duck, collagraph by SA, 2018.]

Eppink's 101 Techniques, - Part III

        The final section in Norman R. Eppink’s monumental 101 Prints: The History and Techniques of Printmaking is Children’s Processes.  This may possibly have been an afterthought in his mind, but I have to give him enormous credit for including it at all, as most Serious Artists hardly seem to consider that children’s art is art at all — or that adults using “Children’s Processes” are making real art, either.

        It’s interesting to see what print-making techniques Eppink relegates to children or considers appropriate for children, and a large percentage of them are relief processes.  Hand print, potato print, glue print, and rubbing all seem fair enough (although see Diana Pomeroy’s potato prints and Raubdruckerin’s found blocks for adult versions).  Paraffin print and clay print are presumably good for children because they don’t require the sharp tools of most relief printmaking techniques.  Here (above) is Eppink’s

clay print, but I’m not sure he makes full use of the most interesting aspect of a clay block, which in my opinion would be the ability to press all kinds of shapes and textures into it, rather than just drawing lines.

        The foil print is interesting because it looks to be printed intaglio, and I’d be curious how classroom-friendly that actually is.  Does he use ordinary aluminum foil, or does the technique require something a little sturdier?  Do you need a real press as for other intaglio techniques, or can this be done with hand pressing or a mini press?

        Perhaps most interesting are the processes that Eppink includes for both adults and children.  His collagraph is considered an adult technique, but “paper print,” which is simply a collagraph made with plain paper, is listed for children.  Eppink’s paper print (unlike his collagraph) is also printed relief, and I quite like it.  I may do some experiments using paper, since I’ve always used board and thicker materials, but it looks like this would make it easier to get the inking even, not to mention easier cutting and gluing.

        Eppink lists monotype for adults, but “transfer monotype” for children.  His transfer monotype looks like what was called a “trace monotype” at RISD, where it was done by an adult artist.  (It occurs to me to wonder how Eppink made 15 monotypes for his original limited edition book.  Comparing this with the version at the Art Institute of Chicago, it looks like he used the same title for each, but that they are separately drawn and therefore not really the same.)

        And finally, plaster relief print, which Eppink includes in both Relief Processes and Children’s Processes.  Unfortunately, I didn’t scan his adult version to compare with this one, which is print 100 and falls in the Children’s section.  Nevertheless, it goes to confirm a point that sometimes seems to cause people some confusion.  That is that there are some processes that are appropriate for adults only because they may be too difficult or dangerous for children (depending on the child’s age, of course), and there are processes that are safe for children but which adults would never choose to do because they aren’t as
versatile or interesting.  However - and this is the part some people don’t seem to understand - there are also art forms that are appropriate for children and yet still perfectly interesting for adults.  Just because children can make monotypes or collagraphs doesn’t mean that adults should be ashamed to make monotypes or collagraphs.  Just because children can carve rubber doesn’t mean that adults who carve rubber are childish.  (And yes, there’s a parallel here: just because children love fantasy doesn’t mean that adults who love fantasy are childish.)
        I can’t quite decide whether Eppink was contributing to stereotypes or helping to break them down by making a separate section of Children’s Processes, but I’m glad he included them rather than ignoring them, because they certainly add to the variety and richness of printmaking represented.

[Pictures: Garden, clay print (89) by Norman R. Eppink;

Twigs and Pebbles, foil print (98) by Eppink;

Umbrellas, paper print (91) by Eppink;

Tools and Machines, transfer monotype (96) by Eppink;

Nets, plaster relief print (100) by Eppink, all from 101 Prints: The History and Techniques of Printmaking, 1967.]

Eppink's 101 Techniques - Part II

        After Norman R. Eppink covers Relief Processes in his 101 Prints: The History and Techniques of Printmaking, he goes on to other printmaking techniques in which, on the whole, I have significantly less interest.  Nevertheless, several of his sample pieces still serve to shed interesting light on relief printmaking.  For example, when he engraves a pewter plate, he prints the plate both intaglio (ink is forced down into the crevices) and relief

(ink stays up on original surface) for comparison.  He also includes a relief printed version of his metal line engraving.  You can see in both of these how the intaglio print makes the more expected picture - black lines on a white background - while the relief printed version makes a sort of negative.  This is why intaglio took over from relief as the reproduction method of choice in printing.  It is, after all, a lot easier to reproduce the look of a drawing that way.  This is also why I prefer relief printmaking: it has its own unique look instead of being merely a method of reproducing another medium.

        Along with his other metal plate techniques, Eppink includes a dotted metal print, a technique that has always been printed in relief.  You can see my previous post about the technique here.  Why he put it where he did in his book, I don’t know, but I do like this one, with its interesting patterns and textures.

        Unlike the collagraphs I’ve done, Eppink’s collagraph is printed intaglio, which is how one of my favorite collagraph artists, Bonnie Murray, does hers.  This makes for a really interesting look, and this is one of my favorites of Eppink’s prints.  It looks very Venetian.  I’d experiment with this myself, except that
I’ve not yet figured out how to make or seal a collagraph so that it’s sturdy enough to withstand the wiping away of the surface ink that’s required for intaglio printing.  Maybe someday!

        As for Eppink’s continued march through printmaking techniques, I have little interest in Planographic Processes (which is lithography), and although I suppose one could argue that monotypes are planographic, Eppink categorizes his under Miscellaneous Processes.  I don’t much care about Stencil Processes (which include stencils and serigraphy, the fancy word for silkscreen).  And my prejudice is that Photography Processes aren’t printmaking at all but belong in a wholly different book!

        And that concludes Eppink’s review of “serious” printmaking… but tune in for the third and final installment, where things get wild and fun!

[Pictures: Man of the Cloth, engraving by Norman R. Eppink, printed in both intaglio and relief;

Fish Count, line engraving printed as metal relief by Eppink;

Trio, dotted metal print by Eppink;

Façade, collagraph by Eppink;

Pears in a Basket, monotype on glass by Eppink, all from 101 Prints: The History and Techniques of Printmaking, 1967.]

Eppink's 101 Techniques - Part I

        In 1967 Norman R. Eppink (USA) published his monumental work 101 Prints: The History and Techniques of Printmaking, which consisted of exactly that: 101 prints, each representing a different printmaking technique.  (In the limited 1967 edition, each of the representative prints was an original, and the book was printed by Eppink’s own press.  He then published a regular edition in 1971 with reproductions of the illustrations.)  The book is epic in scale and represents a tremendous undertaking on Eppink’s part to research so many different printmaking techniques and master them all at least sufficiently to produce a representative sample.  The only downside is that unfortunately I actually don’t like very many of his prints!  Still, it’s a cool enough project that I want to share a bunch with you - so many, in fact, that I’ll divide them over multiple posts.

        Eppink himself divides his 101 techniques into nine sections, which are Relief Processes; Intaglio Processes; Intaglio, Mixed Media Processes; Planographic Processes (lithographs); Stencil Processes (stencils, serigraph/silkscreen); Photographic Processes; Miscellaneous Processes (rubbings, monotypes, embossing); and Children’s Processes.  Of all those printmaking techniques, my interest is primarily only the very first section, Relief Processes.  In the following list of

relief processes that Eppink includes in his collection, I have linked to some of my own posts for comparison.  Eppink includes woodcut and wood engraving, linoleum cut, and then various multi-block, multi-color versions.  He also includes more obscure blocks including casein, gesso, plaster, lucite, plexiglas, rubber (inner tube rubber, not purpose-made rubber carving blocks, which hadn’t been invented yet), celluloid dissolved in acetone, and my favorite for sheer randomness: rabbit-skin glue mixed with molasses.  In other words, anything that can be made into a flat surface and carved can become a relief printing block.  I’m not entirely sure why these particular materials were chosen for inclusion, but I gather that each of them had at least one “serious” artist working in that medium.

        So I include for you today Eppink’s woodcut, wood engraving, linocut, and casein cut.  Casein, in case you don’t know, is a protein from milk that has a long history of use in paints and glues (and cheese, but even Eppink doesn’t seem to have considered making cheesecuts).  You can see that his casein cut is just a jumble of experimental mark-making, but what I don’t know is whether that’s about all a casein block is capable of, or whether Eppink just didn’t feel like doing anything else with it.  After all, he still had 92 more prints to go.  And finally, I’ve also included his 3-color linoleum block print, which is specifically three blocks, one for each color.

        Some of Eppink’s choices seem arbitrary: why does a 3-color print count as a separate technique from a 2-color print and a 4-color print?  Why include lucite and plexiglas as separate techniques when as far as I
understand it, they’re both just versions of the same acrylic plastic?  It certainly makes me wonder how I would break down the various possibilities if I were to undertake such a project.  But perhaps this blog is at least a partial answer to that question, even if it hasn’t been at all systematic.

        Up next, we’ll move into techniques that, despite being categorized by Eppink in sections other than Relief Processes, are still interesting.

[Pictures: Coast Line, woodcut by Norman R. Eppink;

Ruins, wood engraving by Eppink;

Aquarium, linoleum cut by Eppink;

Fragment, casein cut by Eppink;

Doors, three-color linoleum cut by Eppink, all from 101 Prints: The History and Techniques of Printmaking, 1967.]

Raubdruckerin

        Raubdruckerin (“pirate printer”) is a project begun by Emma-France Raff in 2006.  Like the brass rubbings I featured in the last post, Raubdruckerin prints from textured plaques that were not designed to be printing blocks and that are set in public spaces rather than being in a studio.  Specifically, they choose surfaces in the urban landscape, especially manhole covers.  They look for textured surfaces that are unique and often iconic of their place, sometimes including images, sometimes abstract designs, and often text.  Unlike brass rubbings, Raubdruckerin actually does print as any other relief block, rolling ink onto the textured surface, and pressing.  (This means any text on the original is backwards on the print.)

        I have to confess that although I’ve thought of this idea myself - around here we have plaques near our storm drains with a great design of a fish - I had never seriously considered actually doing it!  Naturally it’s a bit of an undertaking to clean the selected surface, roll it with ink, and print on it, right there in the middle of the sidewalk or street of a busy city!  Raubdruckerin makes an event of it, so that the printing becomes a performance in its own right, inviting passers-by to notice so that they, too, can appreciate the beauty of something they may have walked over hundreds of times without noticing.

        I was quite delighted when I learned about this project, and would love to see the idea emulated in more cities, including the USA.  A quick search of manhole cover pictures on the internet turns up some really gorgeous ones around the world!  To see more of Raubdruckerin’s work (or buy some), check out their web site.

[Pictures: Printing a tote bag in Bruxelles;

T-shirt printed in Berlin;

T-shirts printed in Stavanger and Lisboa (All images from raubdruckerin);

Charles River storm drain (Image from Charles River Conservancy).]

Brass Rubbing

        Brass rubbing is a particular form of relief printing in which, instead of inking the raised surface and laying paper onto the ink, paper is laid on the clean surface, and the top of the paper is rubbed with a wax stick to pick up the raised texture beneath.  Unlike a traditional block print, the image on paper will not be reversed from the block, but it also has somewhat less detail.  In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brass rubbing became popular in Britain to reproduce the many monumental brass plaques that had been placed in churches in the thirteenth through seventeenth centuries, so another difference between brass rubbing and block printing is that in most cases the textured plate was never intended as a printing block or designed with that in mind.  However, repeated rubbing does eventually begin to wear down the brass plaques, so many originals now forbid rubbings… and reproductions of the brass plaques are created specifically to allow rubbing, thus making them true printing blocks of a sort after all.

        Even though the brasses were not intended for printing, they sometimes have really lovely designs and textures.  I particularly like this couple’s Gothic canopy, and the husband’s chain mail and belt.  The other fun details are the lion at his feet, and the little lap dog at hers.  The woman in the gorgeous brocade gown must have been spectacularly

fashionable in life, and saw no reason to stop in death.  A quite unusual amount of work went into patterning her dress all over.  The bust of a man is, by contrast, very simple and may even have been a stock design rather than made to commission as a portrait.  Nevertheless I find it exceptionally beautiful, with its expressive eyes and careworn brow.

        In my youth my jack-of-all-crafts mother dabbled in brass rubbing while we visited the UK, and I (at age 9) joined in with scrap paper and scrap crayons, and kept the results in my scrapbook.  Two years ago at the National Museum of Ireland we found small reproduction brass plaques provided for visitors to make rubbings, but we couldn’t do a very good job, as the provided paper and wax sticks were all
almost entirely used.  You can see in my two examples the shift in brass rubbing fashion: earlier rubbings were black on white, while nowadays people favor metallic on black.

        There’s no reason the rubbing plate has to be brass, of course.  In the United States it used to be not uncommon to make rubbings of colonial gravestone designs.  One difference between the monumental brasses and the colonial gravestones is that the former are, as far as I can tell, carved by anonymous artists, while the gravestones are often initialed by their creators and can be attributed to known carvers.  Of course, all forms of rubbings have become much less common with the ease of photography as a quicker, cheaper, less damaging, and (in some ways) more accurate method of reproduction.  But there is an artist using the equivalent of found brass plaques for interesting effects today, to be featured in the next post…

[Pictures: Sir William and Alianora Burgate, brass effigies 1409, from Burgate, Suffolk;

Margaret Bernard Peyton, brass effigy 1484, from Isleham, Cambridgeshire;

Bust of a civilian (James de Holveston?), brass plaque c. 1360, from Blickling, Norfolk (Images from Hamline University);

Several rubbings from Brightlingsea, Essex and the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, by AEGN;

James Allen gravestone, slate carved by W.C. (William Custin?), 1714;

Jonathan Wyatt gravestone, slate carved by John Stevens III, 1775;

Joseph Fitch gravestone, granite carved by Obadiah Wheeler (decorations) and John Huntington (lettering), 1741;

Job Howland gravestone, slate carved by John Bull, 1785, all gravestone rubbings by Sue Kelly and Anne Williams (Images from the Farber Gravestone Collection).]

Trace Monotypes

        Unlike relief block prints, a monotype, as its name implies, is a one-off rather than a method of making multiples.  Generally it’s done just like any painting, only instead of painting onto your paper, you paint onto a smooth plate of some sort, then press paper onto the plate to transfer the design.  Generally I have little interest in this.  There is, however, one sort of monotype I occasionally make, and at the RISD art museum this past weekend I was tickled to see one and discover that it has a name: trace monotype.

        A quick word about names: monotype and monoprint used to be considered more or less synonymous, but recently people have begun to reserve monotype for the image printed from a smooth plate, and monoprint for varying images printed from a plate that may have some etching or carving on it.  I confess that I’ve been using them interchangeably, so I guess I’d better get more accurate in future!

        Anyway, a trace monotype is done by inking a plate, laying paper down on the ink, and then drawing a design on the back of the paper.  Wherever you draw, the paper is pressed more firmly and sharply against the ink, making a dark inked line on the front of the paper.  There’s often a shadowy look around the line as the pressure, and therefore the amount of ink, fades away from the line.  You can also see on this piece by Hedda Sterne (USA, 1910-2011) the smudgy appearance caused by random ink transfer, especially wherever the artist’s fingers happened to brush or press.

        I make monotypes in only one particular circumstance: when I’ve just finished printing a block and there’s still a fair amount of ink left on my plate.  Rather than waste it, I roll it out as evenly as I can, and use it for a monotype.  In addition to the tracing technique, I also play with several other methods to manipulate the way ink transfers to paper.  First, I remove ink from the plate in some places, for white highlights.  I can use the tip of a paintbrush handle for a sharp white line (as the outline of the chair), the bristles of the
paintbrush for a brushy-textured area (as the skunk’s stripe), or my fingertips for a wider line with smudgier edges.  Then I lay the paper onto the plate and work from the back, again tracing with the paintbrush handle tip (or just a pencil) for a sharp black line (as the tenrec’s lines), or pressing with my fingers with various amounts of pressure for various amounts of ink transfer (as the doodle below).  One other method I’ve used is to cut a stencil, lay it over the ink, and then press the paper over it.  The stencil blocks the ink from the paper (as the snowflake).

        Unlike an ordinary block print, monotyping gives not only black and white but potentially a whole range of greys.  However, it’s quite hard to control.  If the ink is too thick and wet on the plate, the whole monotype turns out a black blob.  If the ink’s too thin and dry, you get barely any image at all.  Still, I’ve had fun fooling around with it on occasion.

        Also, the kids in my classes love this.  At the end of each class, just before it’s time to clean up, one child takes each plate and tries a monotype.  I help by holding the clear acrylic plate up while they work so that it’s backlit and they can see a little bit more what effect they’re having.  All the other kids watch and cheer the artist on and applaud the results - or groan sympathetically if it doesn’t turn out.  There aren’t as many plates as students, but over the course of a couple of days everyone gets a chance.

        I don’t post my monotypes on my web site or bring them to shows.  (And unlike my block prints, I don’t keep track of when I make them, which is why I have no dates below.)  I’m not particularly proud of how they turn out, and I see them as mere doodles and experiments.  But that’s just because I haven’t been interested enough in them to work at figuring out how to make them better.  For me they’re an amusing little afterthought to the “real” printmaking, but obviously some artists, such as Sterne, have used this technique more seriously.

[Pictures: Untitled (Radar), trace monotype by Hedda Sterne, c 1949;

Untitled chair, monotype by AEGN;

Tenrec, monotype by AEGN;

Monoprint Skunk II, monotype by AEGN;

Untitled snowflake, monotype by AEGN;

Untitled doodle, monotype by AEGN.]

Everyday Printmaking Supplies

        One of the things that really allowed me to get going with rubber block printing some twenty years ago is the fact that it can be done in a small space, is relatively easy to interrupt and clean away as needed, and doesn’t require much expensive equipment.  Indeed, these are exactly the qualities that made linoleum block printing take off as a popular medium at the beginning of the twentieth century.  So I prefer to use proper cutting tools for carving and a proper brayer for rolling the ink, but all the other equipment I use is ordinary, everyday objects repurposed for printmaking.  Here are some of those homemade, cheap tools.

        glass - The plate on which I roll out my ink is the glass from a broken picture frame.  You could just as easily use a mirror without a frame, and both picture frames and mirrors are often available for small change at yard sales, or for free in other people’s trash.  Not only is the plain glass just as good as any fancy ink plate you might buy, but it’s actually better than the metal ones you may see for sale, which simply aren’t smooth enough to work well.  (I’ll note that I bought plexiglass plates for my students, to eliminate the risk of breaking or of cuts from the edge of the glass, but for myself, I just have to be a little careful when handling the edge.)

        wooden spoon - Instead of a press or a baren I use this beautiful wooden paddle/spoon.  I bought it at one of those stores that sells cheap overstocks, cut off the long handle, and sanded the stump a little.  If you go this route, the important qualities to look for are smoothness and flatness.  A spoon with a curved bowl may push too far down into carved out areas, and may also distort the rubber more when pressing.

        thumb tack - Very small circles are almost impossible to carve well, but a thumb tack makes quite nice tiny round dots on a print.  If you merely push in and pull out, the hole will be too small even to show up, but if you push down quite deep and wiggle the thumbtack around in a circular motion, you get a good dot.  (Now I just need to figure out an easy way to carve small circles just one size up.)

        toothbrush - The best tool there is for cleaning blocks.  The rubber blocks have to be cleaned both before and after printing.  Before printing the toothbrush helps scrub off any little clinging threads of rubber that didn’t quite get carved free.  Your fingers alone don’t knock off the bits that are still slightly attached.  (Cleaning also removes grease, the powder that keeps the rubber sheets from sticking to each other, dust, cat hair, graphite, or anything else that might flaw the inking.)  After printing, the toothbrush scrubs ink out of even the tightest crevices.

        daubers - I made these to add small areas of different colors of ink to printing blocks.  I don’t guarantee that they’re the best possible tool, but they’re the best thing I’ve tried.  They consist simply of a small bit of polyester fiber stuffing wrapped in flannel and secured with a rubber band.  (I have two sizes, but of course even the smaller can’t be incredibly accurate in inking, so I don’t expect to be too precise.)  They can be washed out with soap and water in the sink - just squeeze them a lot under the water to make sure they’re thoroughly rinsed - reshape if necessary, and allow to dry.

        The thing about relief printmaking is that it’s a poor artist’s medium, and a busy-with-other-things-in-life artist’s medium.  If you wanted to you could use an ordinary fine knife blade to carve ordinary household objects such as erasers or potatoes, and ink them with an ordinary paintbrush.  You might not have to buy any supplies at all.  So don’t think you need to get a fancy professional setup in order to get started.  Use your imagination and see what you can come up with.

[Picture: some printmaking supplies, photo by AEGN, 2015.]

Line Printing Project

        This is the third summer I’m teaching printmaking, and I’m once again pleased with the kids’ work so far.  So I thought I’d use their work to illustrate one of the projects we did.  This is a simple way to make a relief block print not by carving down low areas  but by adding raised lines to a base.
        For the bases my students use mat board - all the squares and rectangles of mat board that are just too small to be used to mat anything else: pieces in the 4x6 inch range.  Of course any sort of stiff cardboard would do.  The students could draw a design on their base with pencil and then carefully add the raised lines following their guide, or they could just start in doodling any which way.
        Last year the raised lines were made by gluing cotton yarn to the base.  This was a little messy, and limited the sorts of lines or dots kids could make.  On the other hand, it ensured that the lines were a consistent height, and the texture of the yarn’s twist made a nice pattern in its own right.  The tree below was done with yarn.
        This year I had the kids try something new: puff paint.  The puff paint came in little bottles with a beautiful fine tip to squeeze out a line of paint.  It allowed quite a bit of control, and allowed little dots and sharp zigzags in a way that yarn did not.  The advantage of the puff paint over straight-up white glue (which I had the kids try two years ago) is that it’s more dimensional and stays where it’s put better.  Also, theoretically it’s a little softer (as in puffier) when dry, thus making inking and printing come out better.  I admit to being disappointed by the puffiness of the particular brand we used (Tulip "Puffy").  The instructions said you had to activate the puff by steaming it, but even when I tried I never noticed much difference.  So the kids printed with their “unpuffed” paint and I think it still worked pretty well.

        Here are a couple of other tips for success:
  - The paint (or glue) must dry thoroughly, so don’t even try to do this project in one day.  I had kids make their blocks yesterday and not print until today.
  - Any large flat areas with no paint will inevitably get ink.  So go with it.  Use a base with texture and deliberately get extra ink on the base.  Or use monoprinting techniques to press in some areas more than others and get different effects.  Or allow the interest to come from the white areas immediately around the raised lines.
  - I’m a big fan of back-of-the-wooden-spoon printing, but for these blocks a press of some sort works wonders.  It helps get all the lines to show up clearly, rather than just the very highest.
  - Let’s be honest: this will never be as cool as carving blocks.  But it can be done with younger kids, and without so many tools, if those are important concerns.  Plus it’s fun to have something a little different to get kids thinking about more relief print possibilities.

[Pictures: Bridge, puff paint relief block, inked block, and final print by CH, 2015;

Tree, string relief print and block by TPN, 2014;

Assorted puff paint relief blocks by students in 2015.]

When Black & White are Not Enough - Method 4

        And finally, one last way to get plenty of color into a relief block print:

Method 4.  Print your single block in black, then color the print like a coloring book.

        This seems to be a very popular method among children's book illustrators these days.  Because each print is colored in individually, this wouldn't be a method particularly well suited to turning out an edition of hundreds of near-identical pieces, but of course with modern book-printing technology, you need to make only one original and then digitize it.  However, this is also one of the earliest methods of making color illustrations in books.  Often a book would be available with the option of black and white or color.  If you bought the black and white version, you might color it in yourself.  If you bought the color version, someone else would have painted over the black and white block prints for you - sometimes with real artistry, but often quite crudely.

        Today's hand-colored block prints are anything but crude.  I've seen a few artists who use colored pencil, but most use watercolor.  I've used this method from time to time to highlight a detail of an otherwise uncolored block, as in the one tiny spot of green for the pea under the princess's stack of mattresses, or the single flash of red at the back of a downy woodpecker's head.  When I do it I have to paint very carefully, most definitely staying between the lines, because the vast majority of my blocks are printed with water-based ink, and if I painted right over the black ink, it would smudge and run into my watercolors.  Artists who use this technique more lavishly print with oil-based ink.  Once oil-based ink is dry you can paint over it all you like.

        So, there you have it: four basic methods for adding color to block prints whenever you're craving something bright.  But as for me, having spent two weeks here going through all different ways to make colored block prints, I come to the end ready to go back to where I began: I love color - bright, beautiful, vibrant, rich, infinitely variable color - but when it comes to block prints, I really just want my black and white!

[Pictures: Ready for Planting, hand painted wood block print by Mary Azarian;

Klewasser (Clover), hand colored woodcut, c. 1500 (Image from Davidson Galleries);

Tom's Orangutan - Bukit Lawang, rubber block print with yellow watercolor by AEGN, 2004 (sold out).]

When Black & White are Not Enough - Method 3

        Ink is not the only way to add color to a block print.  Simply printing on colored paper is enough to give an image some brightness.  But sometimes one color of ink on one color of paper seems too plain.  (I know, I know.  It's hard to imagine that one color of ink and one color of paper could ever be insufficient!  But strangely enough sometimes people do want more color than that.)  This is the place for a technique called chine-collé.

Method 3.
Lay colored paper with adhesive on the back of the inked block, then lay background or backing paper on top of that before pressing.

        By cutting or tearing the colored paper to size, it can highlight just a particular part of the print.  (Cutting, of course, is easier to control, but I think torn edges blend better with the background paper, so I prefer to tear the paper when I can.)  For example, to make this sunflower, I first inked my block, then carefully laid down the glued yellow circle just over the flower.  I then laid down the green paper over the whole block and pressed the whole thing as usual.  The pressure simultaneously transferred the ink to the paper and adhered the yellow paper onto the green paper.

        I've used the technique most often to cover an entire block almost completely, with the white paper as a sort of background border with just the edges of the ink touching it.  But there's no reason you couldn't use multiple scraps of colored paper on each block and have lots of different colors.

        The only difficulty I've had is in smearing the ink if the adhesive makes my paper too damp.  Also, it's a little difficult to juggle the timing of inking and gluing so that neither the ink nor the glue gets dried out while waiting for the other.
        This is a technique that works especially well with a serious press so that the multiple layers are embossed together.  It doesn't work quite as satisfyingly with hand pressing, alas.  It's still fun, though!

[Pictures: Sunflower, wood block print with chine-collé by AEGN, 1999 (sold out);

Weeping Willow, linoleum block print with chine-collé by AEGN, 1998.]

When Black & White are Not Enough - Method 2

        Sometimes a little touch of color just doesn't do the job.  Sometimes you want a full-color block print.  Then it's time for…

Method 2.  Ink and print separately for each color desired.

        This can be done with the same block or with different blocks for each color, but either way the biggest issue is registration: making sure all the separate printings line up.  At least, that's the biggest problem I've had when I've experimented with doing multi-color prints.  My solution was to make myself a cardboard frame (I'm sure most people use wood!) that will always hold the block and the corner of the paper in the same position relative to each other.  Even so, you end up rejecting a lot more prints.  Not only will a mistake in any one of the printings ruin it, but so will misalignment between any printings.  It's a pain in the neck, for sure!

        2A.  In traditional western block printing, the most common method is to carve a separate block for each color.  This allows the
image to be printed over and over with maximum accuracy.  I've tried this only once, and it was not a success.  (The colors didn't layer the way I expected them to.)  So I've posted an example above from someone generally considered a little more successful than me!

        Separate blocks are not the only option.

        2B.  In traditional Japanese printmaking, separate blocks are used, with a key block for the black including the outlines.   However, some blocks may be inked with more than one color, especially for the subtle gradations you see in many Japanese prints.  Multiple colors can be done all at once, or done using the same block in different print runs for the different colors.  Registration is aided by making the wood block larger than the paper, with a notch cut into it at the corner.  Then each time the block is printed, the paper must be lined up with the notch.

        2C.  In a reduction print the same block is used for all the colors, but recarved between each.  This blue jay is my very simple example.  First I carved away everything that was to be white and printed with blue ink.  Then I took the same block and carved out all the parts that were to remain blue, leaving only the parts to be printed with black.  The method can, of course, be used for lots more colors than a mere two.  The main disadvantage of this method is that you can never go back and print more, so you have to print lots and lots of extras of the first color to allow for attrition in each successive printing.  (I am fascinated by this method and plan to try more, so I'll be coming back to this in more detail in another post.)

        2D.  And finally there's the Provincetown or white line style of block printing.  This is another one I want to try myself, so I expect to post more about this later.  For now, I'll just explain that only one block is carved,
with white lines separating each differently colored area, almost like a coloring book.  It's then inked (with a brush instead of a brayer, for control) and printed one color area at a time.  Often the paper is pinned to the side of the block, folded back during inking, and folded down again to print.  Instead of printing an entire edition's worth of sheets in one color before going on to the next color, each print in an edition is printed in its entirety, one color after another, before the next piece of paper is begun.  Artists often experiment with many different color variations instead of making each print identical.

        Inking multiple colors separately is definitely more complicated than plain old black and white.  But what's up next?  Ink isn't the only thing that comes in different colors…

[Pictures: Portrait of a Woman after Lucas Cranach II, linoleum block print, 1958 (Image from The Metropolitan Museum of Art);

Massaki and the Suijin Grove by the Sumida River, wood block print by Hiroshige from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1856-8 (Image from hiroshige.org);

Blue Jay, rubber block print by AEGN, 2010;

Provincetown Backyards, wood block print by Blanche Lazzell, 1926 (Image from Baren).]