Printing your stone!
Monday, September 25, 2006
After making it through your first etch and second etch, you have finally reached the moment that you have been waiting for; printing on actual paper! Many of the steps in printing your stone are similar to processing your stone. You will still wash out the image with lithotine, rub up with asphaltum, except you will not use any acid in your gum.
Before you start any printing:
1) Tear down your paper to at least 12 sheets that are the same size.
You will probably want extra copies of your prints for drawing, painting, and creating collages with. Also, you will need at least six clean copies of your print, with no fingerprints in the borders and even dark ink. In order to achieve 6 good prints, most printmakers will start with 12 sheets. Until you are a precise and clean printer, you will need to give yourself a lot of room to mess up.
2) Find the correct scraper bar for your stone and set the pressure.
Your scraper bar should be smaller than the stone, but larger than the image area.
3) Mark off where you will engage the pressure and stop the press with tape.
Printing your Stone:
1) Roll out your ink. For this print, we will be using black ink.
2) Get out two bowls with water and two sponges.
3) Wash out the image with lithotine.
4) Rub up your image with a thin coat of asphaltum.
5) Wipe your image with a damp sponge, removing the gum stencil.
6) Charge your roller and roll over your image area.
7) Wipe with clean damp sponge.
8) Repeat steps 6 and 7, counting the number of times you have rolled on the stone
9) After about 6 passes, print on newsprint. Check the quality of the image. If the image is too dark, you will need fewer rolls on the stone. If it is too light, you will need to roll the stone more.
10) When you have a good quality print on newsprint, move onto your good paper.
11) After you have finished printing on all of your good paper, you must close down the stone.
12) Rosin your image. Buff down excess rosin.
13) Talc your image. Buff down excess talc.
14) Pour one ounce (a shot glass) of straight gum onto your stone.
15) Buff down your gum with kimwipes. You want a thin, even coat of gum.
16) Your stone is now ready to be stored and can be printed again at a later date.