RSSTonight I finished the limited edition run of the lily. The edition consists of 5 handpulled gravure prints. I thought it might be fun to bring my camera along so here are photos from our printing session.
I use scrap pieces of matboard to ink the plate. I mixed the sepia etching ink with easy wipe compound and applied it liberally to the plate. I removed the excess ink with the matboard scrap.
Following inking, I use pages from a phonebook to wipe the plate. I use the palm of my hand for the final wiping prior to printing.
Here’s what the plate looks like after inking and wiping. While the photo doesn’t show it well, the plate is inked pretty heavily. You can see the stain on my right palm from buffing the plate during the final wiping. The plate is now ready for set up on the press and printing.
The plate is placed on the bed of the printing press and the presoaked paper is registered with the plate using the registration grid on the press bed. The paper is shown behind the plate.
The pressure was increased from the last printing session a few days ago in order to pull more ink from the plate. This is the finished product shown here with the plate.
The plate as it looks after printing the edition.
The lily run on the drying racks with the Eggslicer print, home from the show at Adams State College.
