New Year 2014 - at Edinburgh Printmakers

With New Year celebrations out of the way, I headed back to Edinburgh Printmakers again with high hopes of making some new stones using the maniere-noire and acetate transfer techniques I learnt back in December. I planned to spend three days working in the studio this time.

I wanted make some deletions to my Cuillin stone - the first one I made - to lighten some areas, then add some colour layers to the image using acetate transfers. I had an image of Ama Dablam in the Khumbu in mind for a new stone.

After a lovely sunny journey on the train with its views of the magnificent Northumberland coast, I arrived at EP around lunchtime and set to work. The process of grinding the stones meant that I ended up with a second clean stone with my name on it - so that meant I could use my reserve image of the Cadini di Misurina to make a third lithograph - and all in three days! I thought Alastair seemed a bit bemused by my ambition!



I made some deletions on the Cuillin stone, lightening up areas using a pumice stick then processed the stone with two gum etches, rolling it up with black ink to protect the image overnight.










Next I prepared the new stone with black ink ready to make the maniere-noire drawing of Ama Dablam. By now it was 7 30pm and far too late to start drawing. I had forgotten how long it takes to process the stones at each stage!

 

Day 2 - and time to make the drawing of Ama Dablam. Again I used a razor blade and some white spirit and rag, then processed the stone with two gum etches (see 4 December blog), rolled it up with black ink and left it to rest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile I cleaned off the Cuillin stone and rolled it up with a deep blue ink. After proofing it, I printed a run of 12. The adjusted image is now lighter in places so the colour layers should be more effective.

No time left today for anything else but cleaning up! And then off to meet a friend for an early dinner at L’Escargot Bleu.

 

Day 3 - time to find out how the new Ama Dablam image works! I mixed up a good bright blue, adding some extender to make it more translucent. Having cleaned off the roll up black from yesterday, I rolled up the stone with blue and proofed it.

A good colour, so I printed a run of 12.

 

 

 The rest of the session was taken up with re-grinding the Cuillin and Ama Dablam stones to prepare them for my next visit. - yes, I would need to return the following week to add more layers of colour! In three days of intense concentration, I had only managed to produce editions of two single colour images!