Art of Arts Lisa Batchelder

 

 Print making

 as an artist we all have things we love to hate and our own trials . One of the biggest things as an artist we face is the vision of what is in our minds eye that we want to create verses the gap of what we actually make with our hands.  Our vision verses reality and as artist we struggle and claw to close the gap. This is where I am with printmaking the beautiful struggle of the minds eye and closing the gap.  

Lisa Batchelder

Ominous Blue Tentacles  

Reductive, relief, print 

with French posh ware and chin'colle 

40x30in (2020).

This is piece has hand carved lino-cut pieces, on an acid etched background with

 French posh ware, then Chin colle paper for the final drop.  

Pieces like this are tedious and time consuming.

THE PROCESS;

 FIRST take a piece of linoleum cut it size .

You must then ware P.P.E. .

It takes lye crystals, spritzes of drain cleaner and water.

 Make sure all materials are labeled and you are in a ventilated area.

 It takes four to six hours for the acid to etch your plate and your plate to cure.

One must continuously spritz and check to make sure the process is not to excessive to eat away the plate or not doing any thing at all, 

  Next process after etching you use vinegar to neutralize the acids and wash your plate and let it dry before you add ink. 

This print has a two layer back ground.

The first drop is yellow ink because its the lightest .

  This does not sound like much but, the plate was hand wiped it takes time to hand wipe a 40x 30 plate.

 Then next drop onto the etched back ground was a pale blue ink, sets well was added to the ink to make the ink more transparent and  bring the yellow through. This also will mix as it sets and cures and other colors will emerge .

 To rub your plate mix the ink to your desired color and add the sets well.

Then take cheese cloth rub the ink on your plate and  wipe tour plate until all of the grooves are filled.

Moving on you have to have a feel for the plate after wiping with cheese cloth. News print is used to buff your plate till it  flows over the plate smoothly and its ready to run through the press. 

Now at this point you set your press pressures and your paper should already be cut to fit.

I used 300 weight cotton rag soaked for 30 mins and hung to dry where it is slightly damp.

I lay the plate down first, different artist can do this technique differently.

 This is where the magic happens. Next add the paper on top of you plate and roll it through the press.

The first drop for me is not that grand but the second drop is where you can start seeing magic. 

After printing your back ground you let it cure for at least and hour  you can watch your colors come through . 

Now I had my back ground.

 I took my carved linoleum octopus tentacles mixed ink in  different colors laid them on top of my paper face down and ran them through the press.

For me the colors were too similar and it looked a bit flat.  

I wanted to remedy  the flatness so I took brown paper cut out tentacles heated and iron and melted gum  wax.

 Then ironed the wax onto  the brown paper tentacles. 

I inked the tentacles carefully.

 placed them and ran them through the press on my piece.

 It still to me was not a finished piece . I then took professional spray paint 

and took those same tentacles I made from brown paper and used them as a stencil  and laid them down and spayed around them to give them a crisp and clean look. 

This technique is called French Posh Ware. 

This piece was still not a finished piece it needed that final push and I looked for advice from other artist and researched other artist and print makers. I then decided to chin colle over the top. I chose a bright teal blue paper  cut out tentacles and chin colle them on the top. 

This was the Ah Ha moment. 

When I saw my color pallet come together and my final piece emerge.

This is the magic .

My love hate relationship with printmaking and the beauty of struggle.