I was holed up in the Art building from 4:30 to 10 last night like a boss doing my printmaking homework—hardground etching in an edition of 5 prints, meaning no fingerprints ANYWHERE and perfect registration (alignment of the print on the paper; basically, if you stack ‘em up the image should be in the same spot every time, and if it’s crooked you’re fucked).

Let me say this now: having the entire print lab to myself with music blasting and just… creating is about as close to zen as it gets; I wish everyone could feel that way at least once in their lives.

although the art building is SUPER creepy after hours, that part is, uh, not so fun

and as always, pictures because apparently I cannot help but document and explain EVERYTHING

This is my plate! The black stuff is asphaltum (yes, it’s blacktop; yes, it smells like ass) hardground; the image is drawn in with a scribe, which involves many hours of scratching at the plate and trying not to gore myself in the eye. After that’s done, it goes in the 20:1 nitric acid bath; I left mine in for about 15 minutes but some people go for as long as 30.

My workspace; obvs I am a very neat and organized person (look how the slab isn’t completely covered in ink!!). Preparing the ink is kind of like spreading peanut butter that doesn’t kill me; you smear it back and forth with some oil until it’s loose (consistency of… uncooked egg?), then you scrape it onto the plate with those little cardboard squares.
Here’s my plate; the asphaltum has since been cleaned off with mineral spirits and Simple Green, inked, and wiped w/ tarlatan (mesh cloth; kind of rough, kind of not) and my hand—

yeah okay what is this shit

If there is one truth to printmaking, it is “you will get ink everywhere—on your face, on your hands, all your clothes, in your stomach”, which is kind of counterproductive since we want clean prints :/ So after doing a plate wipe to push ink into the grooves on the plate and clean off the excess, I have to get this stuff off my hands so I can handle the paper and presses (don’t ever go near a printing press with inky hands, your fellow printers will MURDER you).

Easier said than done, though! Vine black ink is oil-based and stains your hands something fierce; I had to scrub repeatedly with mineral spirits and Simple Green (one day I will set myself on fire) and there’s still a lot of crap in the creases of my skin and around my nails. which is terrible because our clinic just had our annual banquet; it’s like getting your face painted the day before a recital, seriously

Did I mention mineral spirits and Simple Green are terrible for your skin? I think I have contact dermatitis on my fingers of all the times not to have nitrile gloves

One of our lovely presses; this one is my favorite because of the giant crank but there are two more plus a mini-press and a machine press. To print, you make a little sandwich: mylar/newsprint with registration guidelines for your plate and paper, the plate, your paper of choice, some more newsprint, and the nice, clean press blankets on top (this is why we don’t like the inky hands). Then just feed that sucker into the roller and you’re in business.

This is a test print on newsprint to see if there’s anything I need to fix before producing the final edition. The etch is okay and the plate wipe is good, if a little dark in one corner, so I can make the rest of my prints relatively consistent.

The actual prints (the nice, clean, correctly registered prints) are on 8x11 sheets of Rives BFK, a fancy ($5.00/23”x30.5” sheet, I am murdering my wallet) cloth paper, and drying comfortably in a rack in the print lab, where I can present them for critique on Tuesday (I hope).

…~*the more you know*~