There’s this thing you can do with pronto plates that’s mad genius. They’re translucent, so multi-plate registration is easy peasy. You can re-position them on paper and the ink doesn’t smear everywhere as it might with a woodblock or other inky process.
I tried a 3 color the other night with yellow, orange, and black. Sadly, the orange ink was a little too loose and haloed a bit, plus I’m not sure I like that color. The yellow worked out swimmingly. 😀 This was only my third official date with the plates. Overall, super black india ink (with carbon black pigment) seems to take ink the best. Laser printed line drawings are a close second & toner+alcohol wash isn’t bad. I’ll let you know how it stacks if I ever manage to pull an edition.
The kitty image above is a sharpie drawing scanned & laser printed onto a plate. It must have had a lot of loose toner when I fused it, because there are little specks all over that one. In order to hide the noise, I printed it down on a ridiculously red sheet of Lokta paper (quite a fibrous paper), but it took a load more ink than I thought it would, and the paper dye transferred to my plate. No big deal—just an adjustment!
Did you know that lotka is often used for religious documents (made in Nepal) b/c it resists insects, mildew, and tearing? I love this paper for covering books that’ll get a lot of handling, but had never used it for printmaking before. (As you can see from the uneven tear down above.)
In other news, the tiny carrots in the yard are almost ready to harvest. They were meant to be about 3 inches tall (short variety), but they’re only turning up about 1 1/2 inches. Might need more ground time. Momo, however, is not impressed. Quite sweet and crisp, though.
Nicci 