Yes, I said it. It's spectacular! Blacks have such different personalities, and when printing Carbon Black onto my slightly creamy Strathmore paper (some hate this paper but I love it for relief), it looked beautiful! I'm on the final push for
The Tesla Project and it all seems to be coming together. It was good timing to go in to the WPA studio last night and crank out some postcards. I had a momentary question that I posed to my local printmaking guru about open editions. All my editions have been limited, how does an open edition work? Can I sign it and title it and everything? Am I breaking some kind of printmaking code of ethics by not numbering the prints? He said to go forth and conquer. (I do actually own a print from an open edition. It's a J. Borges print and even though I'm a printmaker, I did not hesitate to add it to my collection.) If you have an opinion on open editions, I'd love to hear it.
How did I use the ink (
Akua Intaglio Carbon Black) I'm finding delicious? Well, straight out of the can. I tried stirring it per instructions, but it is thick like peanut butter. I plopped some down on my personal piece of plex that I use only for water-based inks, and rolled it up and applied it with a brayer to my mounted linoleum. I had my inked block face up on the press bed, put on my paper, and then covered with a piece of chip board (no blankets needed here), and ran it through the press. It was quick and easy.
The night before I inked up the same block with all-around awesome printmaker
Carolyn Kimball who worked the press, since we're making hand fans for The Tesla Project with the same image. I'll be posting more about these gems as they become assembled, but here's a picture of our bounty. Carolyn's great to work with. She's all business in the shop while I get distracted every 2 seconds. She kept me on track, is fun to be with, and we cranked these fans out in no time. I'm looking forward to seeing people using these fans with the original Mr. T printed on one side.
2 comments:
Cathy, I have a printmaking friend who does all her work as an open edition. Nothing is numbered, ever. Her prices reflect this in that they are very reasonable. She would rather more people are able to afford her work. Another friend editions each print run, even though the next batch may be identical. Another friend will do 70 pieces in a run and never print from that plate again. So. Yeah. I'm not sure how many rules apply unless you are selling your prints for thousands of dollars and people want to know that they are truly getting 1 of just a few.
Thanks, Dawn. I'm terrible about following through on editions. I print one and then I'm really ready to move on to the next project. Then on some numbered prints, which are inevitably a low edition number since I hate editioning, they turn out to be a good seller and then I'm out of luck. I need to find a balance!
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