hey welcome back to diode press, i'm graham. so todays video is going to be part one of a relief project that i'm working on. so to get a few things out of the wayi’m going to print it on my kelsey press, but the downside of that is it can only printup to 3x5â€. so i had the idea for this print to print it on a 2x3, but have the block repeat in a circle.
photopolymer resin for 3d printing, so linework on the left side of the drawing will continue into the same block on the right side. so as it goes around, i'll have a print in a circle. it'll make a little more sense when i get to actually printing i’m making this print using resingrave,which is an epoxy resin block mounted on a block
of wood. here you can see the section of epoxy, and then the wood block. it has similar qualities of endgrain woodtypically used in engravings. i'm going to put together a video on resingrave and the different ways you can use it. basically you can do relief printing, which is what i'm doing in this project. or intaglio where you ink and wipe the block.the main thing to know is that you can’t use woodcut or linocut tool, you have to useengraving tools or a dremel to make your marks. it's just too hard of a material. but i'm going to make a video all about resingrave, so keep an eye out for that on the channel. so we're ready to jump into the video, but i also wanted to mention, whenever you are using engraving, woodcut or lino tools.
always cut away from yourself, in case the the tool slips off the plate so you don’tpoke or cut yourself. sometimes when filming it’s hard to demonstrate and keep my handsout of the way, and it looks way scarier at 500-times normal speed!so lets get to the print! normally when i do a print on resingrave,i tone the block using a wash of black india ink, so then when i carve into it, you geta very clear image of your print, since the carved lines pop out from the natural whiteof the resingrave. but in this case i tried something a littledifferent. i started by of by drawing my sketch onto the white block block. i did it firstin pencil so i could make any adjustments
that i want. then i went over my linework with a pen tolock in what i wanted. after that i went over the block with a dark gray copic marker. thistoned the block, but i could see my solid linework really easily through it. it's a bit hard to see in the camera, but it shows up great in person. and at this point it was lots and lots ofcarving. i start off by defining the edges of the image.since this image is going to be repeated in a circle, i had to make sure i was carefulnot to take off any of my lines at the left and right borders, so i started there andthen worked around the plate. this is the speed that i’m actually working
at, so it’s definitely takes a while withthese fine lines. to clean off larger areas of the plate i usea scraper tool, the same type i use for my mezzotints. this works great with the epoxy-likefinish of the resingrave. another thing that i do with resingrave thati don’t think would work so well with most materials is you can scrape along the edgesof your linework and really refine them. now i’m missusing the side of a tint toolthat had a broken handle to do this here, but a scraper would work as well. at this point i’ve gotten all of my linescut in, so i really need to see what it’s looking like with ink and find out if i’vebeen clearing out enough material.
so i sandwich the block between two otherold blocks so the brayer can run evenly, and then ink it up.here you can see i need to do some more carving on the edges of the plate since they are pickingup ink, and there is a lot of chatter in the background area as well.some people really like the look of this, where you can see the tool marks, and i doat times, but for this print i’m going for a cleaner line.so it’s back to the tools for another pass through the block. finally i’m happy with the linework block or keyblock, and i want to see how it’sgoing to look on paper. i also need to transfer
my image onto my next block for the backgroundcolor. i’ll be printing this whole project on my3x5 kelsey press, and i have a couple of videos i’ve done in preparation of this project.one on storing the rollers, and one on mounting the press, so i’ll put those in the descriptionbox below. i ink up the press and its time to setup thechase. resingrave is just a little bit shorter thantype-height, so to raise the block to the correct height, i’ve found that two layersof hardboard, and one sheet of paper taped to the back do the trick. then i arrange my furniture and koins to get the block locked down. i’m not worryingabout registration or placement at this point,
since it’s just a proof. now on this first proof you can see the ink on the right side of the paper. this is actuallybecause of my press. the left rail is just a hair lower than the right. i’m sure atsome point over the life of the press it got bent. so to fix this, i tape up the left railwith one layer of tape, and problem solved. so now that i’m good with the proof, i needto transfer this to another block so i can keep the multiple blocks registered inline.to do this i tape a sheet of paper, and then a sheet of non-stick baking paper onto thepress and print onto it, making sure the plate is loaded up with a bit more ink than normal. now i remove the chase, the ink plate and the rollers from the press and i lock up thenew resingrave plate into the chase. making
sure that it’s positioned in the exact samespot as the original keyblock. i load it back into the press, and print theimage on the wax paper onto the plate. and you can see why i removed the ink rollersfor this step. and here is my wax paper version and the printonto the block. this is the paper i used to make the transfer. and here is the keyblock, and then the next block that i’ll be working on in part two of this project.
so that’s it for part one. in the next partof this video i’ll be finishing the final block and printing the image. so hit the thumbsup if you like the video and subscribe if you have not so you don’t miss part two.also let me know if you have any questions
down in the comments and i’ll be sure toanswer them in part two. thanks!
