Viaduct & Mill prints

Following on from my previous blog post about the viaduct dry points, I have done a number of new chine-collé prints from the plastic plate using yellow tissue paper. I decided to use my portable etching press this time and the results have been amazing. The line is sharp and works well with the tissue paper. I printed some plain black and white dry points and results were just as amazing.

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For the first time, I have printed a couple of etching aquatint prints from a zinc plate using the small Italian press I have at home. The results are lighter than using a larger more powerful etching press. The prints look as though there is a mist in the air. I used the plate depicting the Queen’s Head pub located on Little Underbank in the town. I use a medium plate oil mixed with black printing ink from Intaglio Printmaker, London.

My next set of prints use a monoprint stencil combined with a colour printed transfer technique called matte medium transfer. I have used this technique before so wanted to experiment further. The subject matter used was Pear New Mill which is a former spinning cotton mill just outside the town centre.

I initially printed abstract blocks of colour mainly greens and blues using a latex Gelli plate size A5. I then printed a stencilled pattern onto the same prints using System 3 acrylic paint. The paper stock I use is Winsor & Newton ‘Galeria’ Acrylic paper (300gsm). This acrylic paper is very durable and can withstand a lot of abuse especially when removing the excess paper from the colour transfer. I use acrylic paint because it is water based but cannot be easily removed and when it comes to rubbing off the excess paper transfer, the acrylic always holds firm. I also found that traditional photocopy transfers work just as well as the laser printed transfers.

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You still have to be gentle with the colour transfers though. The transfer will however fall off in small areas of the print but this is normal and strangely enhances the print in a way that gives it an old photographic feel. Finally, I used Daler Rowney matt acrylic varnish to seal and protect the prints.

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