Today I had booked time at the local Uni to print my new piece. I have chosen a piece I did for Iron Fist a while back and wanted to do something very special instead of the normal screenprint for a change.
I decided to make it a drypoint print. Essentially, drypoint is scratching an image into a surface, filling the scratches with ink and pressing it on to paper. It is a long long awkward process but achieves a beautiful result and done as I like to do- each one is different and absolutely unique and cannot be reproduced.
I chose to print on this beautiful hand made paper I found, really expensive but so worth it.
First soak the paper; its needs to be moist so it can be pressed into the small scratches on the plastic. Depending on the paper type it can take from 10- 20 mins.
In the meantime, while your paper is soaking you can ink up your plate- I am using and A3 sized piece of PVC with my images scratched into it- you can use a nailed glued to a piece of wood or any sharp object- you can buy special tools- but a nail is just as good; whatever works for you and feels right.
Here I have my inking area set up; the paint gun, the squirt of ink (oil based), a small piece of square card (white pictured) to scrape the ink into/onto the plate/PVC, gloves (shit gets everywhere and later when you are getting all the paper sorted- you will need clean hands), a load of coarse rags to remove the excess ink from the plate.
next, place a piece of clean paper on the surface of the Big Rolly Machine That Loves Fingers. and place your plate on top of it ink facing up. Your hands need to be clean now- any ink anywhere else other than on that plate is Game Over.
now go get yr lush hand made soaked paper and roller it gently like it was the face of your lover between two piece of blotting paper to remove the excess water.
Lat the paper on top of your inked up plate- don't worry about getting it too square- we can trim it later- just make sure there is a big white space on all sides.
then you lay another clean sheet of paper of the top and make sure its clean and smooth to soak up the excess moisture.
Then roll down the three pieces of felt- very important that they don't have any creases or folds in them and they must be CLEAN- you getting the drift here?
Now roller the big wheel of doom
now once rolled through- carefully pull back all the felt and sheets of paper and lift up your paper ready to place on the drying rack. Repeat process.
This is only a sneak peak for now. I will be releasing the very very limited edition tomorrow. The fact that they take so long to do and that each one is unique will push the price up a little but they are so worth it and so beautiful- even if I do say so myself. Each one will be numbered and signed.
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