intaglio printing.

Intaglio printing is a long process but very worthwhile. For are homework last week we were given a small plastic rectangle and a sharp scratchy thing and were asked to scratch a design into it. I chose to do a rose and did it free hand, it probably would of been a lot easier to put a picture underneath it and go over it but i am silly :). We then brought these plastic rectangles in, went to the print centre and started the printing process.

First we had to scrape down the sides of are rectangles so that the edges weren't sharp, but sloped instead after this we popped on some once green gloves and covered a leather dabby thingy in lots of oil based ink and spreaded it over are plastic rectangles. We then used the leather finger dabby thing to get all the ink into all the nooks and crannys. Once the design was fully inked up, we then used a netted rag called a scrim to wipe off all the ink, sometimes the ink got on the back of are design so we had to use a smelly rag from the smelly rag bin to wipe off the back. Now we had to grab a damp piece of thick paper and take it over to the rolling machine. We put down a piece of scrap paper down onto the rolling machine and marked the edges of are damp paper on it and then put are print in the middle, then put the flurry blankets over this and rolled. We then had a print, and if we wanted another we simply had to put more oil over are print and do the whole print again.

Overall I'm pleased with how both of my prints turned out,  where i hadn't rubbed off all the ink around the edge of the print there's a lot of shadow. I prefer this look because i think it makes it looks more edgy and less 'clean cut'. When i scratched the design in, i didn't do it very neatly and also pressed in more hard, this meant that more ink went into the dents making all my line work really clear and dark. The only drawback of not rubbing off all the ink means that each time i did this print each one would be slightly different because it wouldn't be possible to get the exact amount of ink each time. Which kind of defeats the object of being able to print the same image 100 times over if we wanted. Although there are a lot of procedures and different things we have to remember when printing, i enjoyed making the print, from beginning to end. I hope that i get another chance/excuse to go to the print centre soon because this is one part of the media course that I'm really enjoying :)

rose 1

rose 2