Jajim: Blues 1 and 2

Monoprints again. I went back into the studio to try and finish these two prints I had started several months back. I had started with an acetate/plexiglass drypoint--the lines scratched into the plexiglass sheet with a metal point. Printed in black on RIVES BFK paper.
Then I started in with blue ink, painted onto the plate with a brush to start giving it some color.

With this session I went back in again painting in the vertical blue stripes with different tonalities of blue ink; mostly Pthalo Blue and some cobalt/ultramarine.
I tried to vary the color a bit with each stripe. and built up the color with two to three layers, each time running them through the press.

The background had been loosely brushed onto the plate and run through the press but I added a rose/quinacradone pink/rose halo around the tapestry part and blurred the edges to make it glow a bit.

Lastly, as my ends had smudged quite a bit, I painted in with a brush and some sumi black ink and white opaque watercolor the black and white trim.




I like the one with the big blue smudge the best--the blues are smokier and richer and the pink/rose really glows due to it being printed on too-wet paper and resisting a bit the paper so it has a mottled/irregular effect that was as accidental as it was serendipitous. I still can't really say I have a grip on the Akua colors--I was using monotype colors--or the press. I'll try to work a little smaller to facilitate some more experiments. Dry paper/wet paper/wetter or dryer ink. Mostly I'm having trouble with lots of smudging at the edges--it may be the nature of the method. The paper and inked plate qet squished together and unless the ink layer is very thin, it has to go somewhere. In my case it seems to be going out the sides.

Jajim-trials: Adding Blues

Well, remind me next time I experiment to do it on a smaller scale. These are 1/2 sheets of Rives BFK printmaking paper so they're 20" X 15" and I need to fill the sink in the kitchen to soak them and just moving them about is a bit of a project and I'd have got lots more trials done if I was just working on a 5 X 7" plate instead.
I'd like to test in a little more controlled manner the differences of wet paint vs. dry paint; damper paper vs less; more or less pressure, etc.

I am using Akua color brand water soluble colors again. This time the monotype colors which are quite syrupy--I think there is both honey and soy oil in the mix?

I decided not to roll out the color but just brush it on to the surface of my original plexiglass plate--I added some retarder to keep it from drying too fast and I deliberately brushed out each vertical stripe separately, remixing the colors each time for each stripe. I think my color was still a bit too thick and beaded a bit to the edges and I had a slight slip when I dropped the plexiglass on the damp paper--I tried to adjust it and you can see the results here where there is a big blue smear at the edge.



But I got that kind of rich, deep, multicolor blu I was hoping for.
I ran the leftover color on the second sheet of paper but it didn't really print so I repainted the plate again--this time adding a little cerulean blue to the border area before I ran it all through the press. I think the cerulean border is a bit too deep and I again had some edge issues--I can't keep the edges from bleeding a bit but I'll make them work with this print. Mostly there is an area of the third blue strip that didn't print at the bottom that is bothering my eye and I'll have to get some blue in there and deepen a bit the saturation of all the dark blue stripes.

I work tomorrow but maybe Friday I'll have another go. I'd like to add a hazy rose halo around the blue border of the carpet of the second trial and I need to deal with the blue smear on the first by trying to print around the edges with a different value and color to see if I can save it. The end edges were meant to be black and white but with all the smearing I'll probably go back in at the end with a brush and some opaque gouache.

Fooling around: plexiglass and a drypoint tool

I've been going through my sketchbook again getting ready for my next woodblock print but I've got nothing really ready to go and I've been thinking and looking; doodling and making thumbnails. So, as I had really nothing ready yet to get put on a board I started looking around for something to do today.

I took a piece of leftover plexiglass--it's about 18 X 24" and a drypoint needle I have and sketched out a rough enlargement of one of my previous textile/rug sketches.
The drypoint tool has a really sharp point, and while it would be traditionally be used to scratch a line in copper or zinc plates to be run through a press, I'm using it on the plexiglass to score a line in the soft plastic.

This afternoon I got to try how it would print. I'm still using Akua color--this time I have a tin of lamp black intaglio ink--and straight out of the tub with a piece of matboard scraping a thin layer of ink all across the plate. Then I lightly rubbed it off with an old rag and ran it through the Press onto damp Rives BFK. The ink is supposed to remain in the scratches and areas left by the burr of the point and should mostly wipe clean off the smooth plastic surface.

It's pretty tacky ink and I've never done this before so my wiping was pretty lame.
One came out a bit overwiped in spots and underwiped in others and my second attempt seemed "moodier" but ended up covered with dark fingerprints-spots and underwiped areas too. Still, the incised scribbles came out pretty good and it's pretty close to my sketch in concept and mood. I suspect if I can get the colors to be rich enough all the splotchiness now will add depth and complexity to the stripes/weaving I'm trying to emulate.

Tomorrow I'll try to go in again painting on the plate in color to bring up the vertical stripes in blue and the background in a sepia/tan--the only trick now will be I'll have to redampen the paper so the plate and paper will match up again.

Wrinkled corners/Jajim continued

I've made decent progress on my Jajim/Kelim pieces. I printed 13 strips; 6 on Echizen Kozo and 7 on Nishinouchi. I took the better ones--those printed on the whiter and heavier E.K. and started playing with how they would look. Then I spent a day printing the background sheets. These are printed by hand off a sheet of uncarved exterior plywood and were printed in multiple layers and colors.
As I worried, I had a bit of trouble laying down and registering the background damp sheets of paper. My paper was slightly larger than my printing plate/board so the unprinted edge formed a frame all around the work. Unfortunately, as the printed portion became thinner from rubbing firmly with the baren, this portion became damper and thinner. The corners sort of dried a bit/ the printed parts got wetter and the corners buckled pretty badly. I let them dry and then re-wet the paper and let it sit overnight. Then I ironed them again as I printed an additional color or two over the background. They flattened out nicely but once they dried (under plywood sheets/some pressure) they wrinkled up again.
I'll have to figure out how to correct/avoid this before I try to print on a larger sheet.
I suspect I'll have to dampen them again, Flatten them with my baren to iron out the wrinkles and try a longer and heavier weighting to flatten them until they are fully dry.
But of the 3 big backgound sheets I prepped I got 2 acceptable versions.

Jajim--a woodblock/collage work in progress

Well, I'm back at work on another "textile" project prompted by a lovely, large Persian weaving I saw in a gallery last year. As I alluded to in my previous post, I am working off a long thin board to print a 4" X 24" image. This is an experiment as the idea is to use these long narrow strips to constitute a larger print by attaching them side by side to make a larger piece. The idea for this comes from a common practice among tribal weavers throughout much of Persia and the East where the frequent migrations required small, narrow, easily portable looms. Working on the ground, horizontally, the width of the piece generated was often only the width of warp strands that could be picked up by the weaver with one hand as she moved the shuttle across and was often measured in finger breadths. The length of the warps was not limited however so long strips would be woven, then cut into lengths and sewn together to make covers, room dividers, carpets, horse blankets etc.
The different tribes and regions led to very different looks; some are monochrome, some have multicolored stripes decorated by alternating the color of the warps to add talismanic symbols and decorations.


I chose a deliberately sober palate of alternating black and white stripes accented by thin red banding--this is very similar to a stunning antique piece I found here: http://www.warpandweft.com/antique-rugs/flatweaves/265/?page=1

What I like so much about these is as they were woven in long strips, during the course of weaving the subtle differences in how tightly packed were the wefts--the horizontal strands--that the actual width varies slightly and rather randomly. When sewn side-by-side this irregularity leads to a wonderful, chaotic rhythm of the alternating bands that I find both beautiful and evocative.

I am not the only one. Here's a painting, "Cite'", by Elsworth Kelly from 1951 and painted on multiple blocks of wood--probably not influenced by Kurdish flatweaves but still the focus and interest and jazzy rhythm of the results are similar.

Like most of my experiments the results have been mixed. These were quickly printed on machine-made paper to try out the idea--I've subsequently printed more onto good paper but I've noticed from the trials that the nature of printing off one block--a template-- means that wonderful variability gets lost as each of my images/portions is the same. I've alleviated it a bit by inverting the central image but I can see the difference.

I still need to try and get some more texture and richness to the white/pale yellow stripes and when I print my background colors I'll try too to get some more depth and shadow to add visual interest and complexity/depth. I'm also planning on trying to go to 5 or seven strips to see how it works as they get bigger.