Saturday, July 28, 2007

Inking a solar plate is the same as inking any intaglio plate, the only difference is that it's a little easier to flip out of your hands because it is so lightweight.



Aplicando tinta a una plancha solar es lo mismo que cualquier plancha intaglio, la unica diferencia es que es facil tirarla al piso porque es sumamente liviana.



The first step is smearing the ink all over the surface, making sure it goes in all the small crevices. I like to use small pieces of old mat board for this. If using Akua-Kolor intaglio ink, it's best to stir it up, deep from the bottom, before using as I find it tends to settle a bit.



Primero hay que untar la tinta por todas partes, asegurandose de que entra en todos las grietas. Me gusta usar pedazos pequenos de 'mat board' para esto. Si estan usando tinta Akua-Kolor, es mejor revolverla bien antes de usarla, hasta el fondo, porque tiene una tendencia de separarse un poco.





Above you can see the ink spread on the plate.


Arriba se ve la tinta en la plancha.





Next I use the dirtier tarltan to remove most of the ink. As you can see there is still ink on the clear parts of the plate. Then I use the cleaner tarltan to take off the rest of the ink. Tarltan comes heavily starched and lightly so. I prefer the lighter. Either way, wiping a plate takes some practice or you can remove too much ink resulting in a very light, unevenly inked print.


Luego uso el 'tarltan' mas sucio para quitar la mayoria de la tinta. Como se puede ver todavia hay tinta en las partes claras de la plancha. Entonces uso el 'tarltan' mas limpio para quitar el resto de la tinta. Tarltan viene con mucha almidon o con poca. Prefiero el con poquito. De todos modos, limpiando una plancha toma un poco de practica o se puede quitar demasiado tinta resultando en un grabado con lineas ligeras o desiguales.




The wiped plate is ready for paper and blankets on the press bed... You can see the result in the previous blog entry!


La plancha esta lista para el papel y las cobijas en la prensa... Se puede ver el resultado en el blog anterior!


















10 comments:

Barbara Carr said...

Thanks for the demo, Diane. Your workspace is pristine!

Annie B said...

I like the softness of the image this plate produced. Is that softness a trait of solarplate?

Diane Cutter said...

Pristine, Barbara? :lol: Not really! If you could see the inks smears and artistic mess just outside the photo range, you'd change your mind.

Annie, part of the softness is the fact that the original drawing is 'pointalist' with lots of tiny dots, so there is some ink between those dots. But I do think the solar plate has a lovely softness that we don't get from relief prints.

Letter C said...

Thanks Diane, for posting the step by step. It makes me want to give solar another try. I haven't been very successful so far.
In addition to appreciating the quality of your finished print, I really like the composition. Nice print all around.
Carol

Diane Cutter said...

Thanks, Carol. I, too, have shied away from solar plates in the past because I'd had bad luck with them. I will post the set up next time I have some good sun, since I use strong sunlight and don't have a more 'scientific' light exposure set-up.

belindadelpesco.com said...

I love this post, and the art is absolutely wonderful. What a great intro to solar plates. I haven't tried them, but I'm revved up and ready to research them now! Thanks for the inspiration! Looking forward to your next piece... :o)

Diane Cutter said...

Belinda... I'm glad I can inspire you to try solar plates as they are really a lot of fun and not at all scarey as a lot of people think. I've been wanting to photo a demo showing the set up for sun exposure but we've had so much rain lately and I haven't been ready when it's been sunny. Soon... I hope!

Anonymous said...

Hola Diane!
Tambien soy de Ceiba, te queria preguntar si das clases de arte?

Making A Mark said...

Hi Diane - Nice post! This post is now featured in my weekly round-up post this week

ainesse said...

Hi Diane
first time I have dropped by you blog. Although we have communicated via the wetcanvas printmakers forum. Its funny that your current post mentions inking up a plate because I just inked up an aluminium plate on which I'd layered some Lascaux hard ground,, Bur the lines I scribed into it with a etching needle dont seem to have picked up the ink. The press result wasnt too good at all!!

I just well last night posted about it.
I have a blog - which you may have checked out. I will drop by again soon.
best wishes

Aine