[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking.

Baren Digest               Saturday, 30 May 1998       Volume 03 : Number 168

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: nsampat@ix.netcom.com
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 08:34:08 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [Baren 830] Re: Woodblock and Litho 


Graham:

I have been listening in on the conversation and thought to share some information. 
Waterless lithography is not as mystifying as one might think. 
The oil-based inks will not touch the areas where water is. 
Instead, if the plate was made with silicon coating, 
the ink will only stick where silicon is removed. 
Now that there is restriction of having water on the plate, 
water-based water-soluble inks would also work perfectly fine 
as long as they are made to repel silicon. This is the basic 
principle behind 'waterless' litho technique.

Hope this helps.

Naresh Sampat
safeartinks@bigfoot.com
Green Drop Ink Company
http://206.216.201.175

------------------------------

From: jimandkatemundie@juno.com (James G Mundie)
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 11:45:34 -0400
Subject: [Baren 831] Woodblock to litho 

Dan wrote:

>...earlier this century some prints were reproduced by 
>inking up woodblocks and transferring the various blocks to litho stones... the 
>lithographs pulled from these stones may on examination appear to have been 
>drawn from actual woodblocks but the pigment infiltration through to the back 
>of the print will be absent.   

Now that you bring this up, my friend Alyse picked up what appeared to be
a lovely little woodblock print in a thrift store last year (nice
Utamaro-esque print of three courtesans).  She paid next to nothing for
it and "authenticity" wasn't an issue, but something about the quality of
the ink on the paper doesn't seem quite right.  

At first it seemed to me that it may have just been a print from
the end of a long run and the block was showing considerable wear.  The
thin lines showed some breaks.  There were also mysterious little printed
blotches around some of the keyblock lines. 

I'll have to take a closer look next time
I'm over at her house, but I wouldn't be surprised if she owns a specimen
of the very practice you described above.

Partially related to the topic: I once created a lithograph by
laying one of my fresh woodcut prints face down on a litho stone and
running it through the press.  Most of the ink from the woodcut
transferred onto the stone, and I was then free to add to the image on
the stone.  In this way I could add washes and textures not possible in
woodblock.  A friend of mine would often combine the two processes, but
with the woodblock predominating (printing color fields in litho, and
then printing woodblocks over them).  

***

Graham wrote:

>Is a person standing in the fog mystified?

There has been a marked improvement in the quality of your one-liners of
late, Graham.  Must be the return of warmish weather to BC.  Has the
Henny Youngman estate given you permission to access the archives?

Mise le meas,
James Mundie

------------------------------

From: sheryl@seas.gwu.edu (Sheryl Coppenger)
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 11:45:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Baren 832] Re: Woodblock and Litho 

> Now that there is restriction of having water on the plate, 
> water-based water-soluble inks would also work perfectly fine 
> as long as they are made to repel silicon. This is the basic 
> principle behind 'waterless' litho technique.

Right.  They've done some demos on this technique at the Corcoran School
of Art in DC.  I go to GWU, but both schools have some of the same
faculty and so we hear about the workshops.  But they didn't have silicon
caulk in Senenfelder's time (or plates either for that matter) and I've 
never heard of using water-based inks in "classical" lithography, so I'm 
puzzled about the original posting about the Japanese woodblocks 
transferred to stone.
 
Sheryl Coppenger    

------------------------------

From: sheryl@seas.gwu.edu (Sheryl Coppenger)
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 11:53:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [Baren 833] Re: Baren Digest V3 #166 

I've gotten a lot of replies to my introductory posting, both on the
list and in personal email.  I'll probably only reply explicitly to 
those which ask a question.  I just wanted to thank everyone for the
warm welcome and the supportive comments about my work.

Sheryl Coppenger    
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/staff/sheryl

------------------------------

From: Ray Esposito <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 11:04:52 -0400
Subject: [Baren 834] Re: Woodblock to litho 

Jim wrote:
>There has been a marked improvement in the quality of your one-liners of
>late, Graham.  


Actually Jim, being IN a fog is why Graham can tell such great one liners
about it. :>)

Cheers

Ray Esposito

------------------------------

From: Dan Wasserman <dwasser@slam.org>
Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 11:42:21 -0500
Subject: [Baren 835] Re: Baren Digest V3 #167 


Dear all... please excuse the following digression:

> That's very interesting.  However, I don't see how it would be possible to
> use water-based inks on litho stones.  The process is based entirely on
> the principle that oil and water don't mix and the printer is continually
> sponging the stone so the oil-based ink will only stick to the right areas.

Senefelder says: "When a plate, whether intaglio or relief, has been inked-in with oil
color, it may be coated with one water color, or it may be illuminated with several,
and then printed-off in one impression.  Two parts of gum and one part sugar are used
for this.  They can be disolved with any water color.  Care need be taken merely that
the colors are well dried before the impression is made."

Arguably this could be considered offset hand coloring, monotyping, or simply color
printing a la poupe.  I have used this method with my students both in litho and
intaglio calling it monoprint coloring, however, some western traditionalists would
consider much of the inking in tradition woodblock printing to be in the nature of
controlled monoprinting.

Note here that Senefelder who appears to rightly claim precedence in innovating
lithography treats both intaglio and relief on stone as lithography.  The former he
describes thus: "the Fatty parts of the stone are not attacked by the etching fluid,
while the rest of the stone is dissolved more or less.  Therefore the  fatty places are
left in relief."  The latter he describes thus: "the design is is either engraved into
the stone with a sharp steel instrument or etched-in with acid."  His discovery of
*planographic* printing from stone in 1817 was accidental in his search for the best
method for etching of stones for true intaglio work, metal plates being beyond his
means at that time.  He indicates a variety of metals as appropriate lithographic
surfaces but as overly expensive in comparison to litho stones (!) and nitric acid
rather than the safer vinegar solely as a measure of economy (citric acid, however,
attacking the chemical ink).  Also he notes that gum alone is sufficient for printing
but is more apt to inking in then gum combined with diluted acid which he believed to 
make invisible but significant *depressions* in the stone.  He also notes that egg and
other animal proteins can be used in place of gum but are less dependable in character.

> Are you sure that they didn't just hand-color outline lithographs with
> watercolor?  Stencils also were used to color prints earlier in the century.

This is true... esp. *pochoir* hand coloring.  Senefelder does also add confusing
instructions for using watercolors with tonal gradients:
"Etch all shades of the color pretty deeply in any of the stippled or aquatint styles.
After this, coat the stone with gum solution, that it shall take no color in these
depressions.  Clean off the chemical ink or the ground with turpentine, and prepare the
whole plate if it has not been prepared already on its surface.  Then coat it with red
gum surfaces, and into this inscribe all those lines that are to remain black.  Then
the color is rubbed-in and the stone cleansed so that it will be white everywhere
except in the engraved parts.  When it is inked-in now, it can take color there only,
and the other depressions (namely the various shades of the color) will remain white
because they have been prepared.  Now it is necessary only to coat each part with the
desired water color and it will be denser, and therefore darker, wherever there are
more and greater depressions."

Note here that through-out Senefelder refers to the non-image areas of hydrophilic
stone that has been given gum-etch as being *depressions* since he figured they were
*etched*, albeit too shallowly to be discerned by the naked eye... he did not have an
understanding of the water or grease loving portions of the stone as being chemically
rather than physically distinguished.  Despite the confusing language, at least of the
translation, this seems to merely be a restatement of the passage given above but 
with the proviso that a stipple application of oily gum resist will reject the water 
color even in the absence of printing ink.  The matter of the *red gum* seems to be a
temporary physical resist that allows printing ink to be applied selectively to the
grease loving areas of the image.  I do not recall what this *red gum* is... cherry
gum?

> I'll try to remember to check the Tamarind book when I get home.  If you
> can, please provide a specific reference in the Senenfelder book.

I have:
The Invention of Lithography by Alois Senefelder, J.W. Muller trans.
Hardcover, Published by The Fuchs & Lang Company, Publication date: July 1911.
(Original title: The Complete Text-book of Stone-Printing by Alois Senefelder, Munich,
1821)

There is a reprint:
A Complete Course of Lithography by Alois Senefelder,
Paperback, Published by Da Capo Pr, Publication date: June 1977, ISBN: 0306800535.

Well this is all a little off topic but may pertain to early reproductive prints of
Japanese woodblock images.  I would think that the blocks may have been done up with
gum and this applied to the stone as a resist to the *chemical ink*... the stone would
then be wiped down with turpentine to remove the *chemical ink*, maybe masked with
asphaultum, and then water color dropped into the areas that had been under the gum
resist... thus the impression would be made without the use of any oil based printing
inks in the areas that had been saturated with the *chemical ink*, or tusche as we
would now call it, and with watercolor dropped into the *open areas* of the stone which
in conventional lithography are considered the *non-image* areas..

Please excuse the band width.

Regards, Dan

------------------------------

From: Matthew.W.Brown@VALLEY.NET (Matthew W Brown)
Date: 29 May 98 23:29:40 EDT
Subject: [Baren 836] Pigments 

Baren,
	Some time back there was a discussion of pigments for use in hanga
printing. By way of a contribution to this discussion I want to  report on my
trip to NYC 2 weeks ago, where I was fortunate to see a show April had hung of
a number of her prints at a Soho gallery. 

	April is getting great colors, and big large areas of them, patterns,
beautiful blues, yellows, purples. . . I enjoyed her prints a great deal. Scale
is an integral part of the effect of a work of art and this is one aspect that
seeing art on the Internet doesn't touch. April's prints are big and they have
a big impact on the wall.

	I was fortunate to spend time with both April and a friend of hers
named Ursula Schneider who teaches painting at Sarah Lawrence Univ. and also
makes hanga prints. Both of them have studied with Bill Paden and I was glad to
be able to meet up with him also. There are some things these folks are doing
with their colors that I think is pretty special: I would speak up for
following April's notions when talking color issues, she obviously knows a lot
about it. 

	One thing these folks are onto is using water-dispersed pigments sold
by a NYC company called Guerra Paint and Pigment. (Keiji Shinohara also uses
pigments from these people.)  Has this source come up on the Baren previously?
For myself I have been using mostly dry pigments bought from Kremer Pigments,
but will report on future experiments with the water-dispersed pigments from
the Guerra people.

Another thing I noticed was that April (and Bill also)  has settled on what
seems like a very good paper, bought from Yamada Shoki, in Tokyo. Perhaps April
has already contributed specifics of this paper to the Baren. I have not used
it myself, it is of a heavier weight than that made by Mr. Yamaguchi and Mr.
Iwano.

 Sheryl,
	 On workshops: I teach a workshop two weeks from now out in western
Mass. at a place called Horizons Craft Center, June 13-15. I think there is a
place for one more in the class . . . (info you could get by going to The
Calendar on my web-site, www.ooloopress.com)

Dave,
  Welcome home!

Graham,
	I have been intending to experiment with varnishing and still haven't
done it. Your specifics will spur me on. I am curious: do you feel the
varnishing is more to help with carving or with printing? In what way do you
think it is affecting both aspects?

Matt 
	
------------------------------

End of Baren Digest V3 #168
***************************