Day 8
Wednesday 28th August 2024
The day when things start to come together.
The stone prepped up the previous day was wiped down and inked. The border of the billboard is a bit random and then there are the corners of some of the billboard squares which stand out a bit too much, but overall the stone looks quite good.
First print of first etch
Fourth print of first etch
Between the first and fourth print taken from the stone, it quickly becomes apparent that the image is becoming considerably darker than anticipated.
This is becoming something I am struggling to control. At times what appears on the stone doesn’t print at all and at other times, what appears feint on the stone rapidly becomes dark during printing. It will of course be due to the different properties of the inks/wax crayons and blocks I am using but until I become more familiar with them, the end result is a bit unpredictable. However, I have just got to adapt to the changing circumstances.
Learning by mistake - again
Having taken a few prints off the first etch, I decided to etch the large stone a second time and try printing on proper paper.
Soaking the paper, then removing excess water using blotting paper, I carefully positioned it on the stone and took my first proper print. The result tested my capacity for learning by my mistakes to its limit. As I peeled the paper back off the stone, it started to stick and tear. Large swathes of the image remained stuck to the stone and the print was ripped in multiple places.
They say you learn from your mistakes, but just this once I would have liked to have learned by getting it right – apparently with stone lithography (unlike pretty much every other printing method) the paper is not soaked beforehand. A light spray mist of water on the paper is sufficient. The print was also becoming very, maybe even too, dark.
Luckily the paper that had stuck to the stone was removed using a sponge and water and this didn’t affect the wax based ink; so not as catastrophic as initially thought!
A few more prints on DRY paper produced workable results, despite being dark.
The Second Colour makes an appearance
A ‘Our lady of Pain’ shape was masked out in the billboard. The intention is to print her into the space using a different colour. But how do you position an image from one stone into a space left in the image of a second stone. The paper is bigger than the stone and placed face down. I can’t see how to register this. In fact this registration conundrum is something I can’t work out at all. I opt for the laying the paper on carefully and lifting up the corners and edges to try and align stone and paper. The registration won’t be perfect, but the nature of the image is such that it won’t matter too much.
Well, it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m happy with it – I have a two-tone image.
The billboard space to the right of ‘Our Lady of Pain’ is reserved for some text. The dark nature of the print means that it’ll maybe a third colour is necessary.
Grinding the small stone was remarkably quick this time; I hardly broke into a sweat. Using acetone, once the stone was dry, I transferred some text.
The text reinforces the questions posed in the proposal. In advanced Capitalist societies can everything be commodified? Does that include religion? These are open questions. Each viewer will interpret the piece in their own way.
Tomorrow I hope to be able to lighten the ink on the large stone, print the text (colour yet undecided) and then, having produced one print, play around with the images and stones I have, to perhaps produce a few more.