CHAPTER FIVE

PRINTING

 

OU'VE cut an image into the surface of your block and it’s time to find out if it will make an impression – a good one, we hope! But before you begin printing, take a look at your workspace. Try to organize it so that you have separate areas for preparing the paper, inking and printing. Have all your supplies ready to go: paper, ink, ink knife, roller, baren or spoon (unless you have a press), masking tape, ruler and pencil. As for a dress code, old clothes, an apron with pockets, a hat to keep your hair out of the ink, and rubber gloves are all you need.

The first step is to prepare the paper. Make sure your hands and the surface you will be working on are clean. Cut the paper down to fit your image, leaving a margin of at least 2 1/2 to 3 inches. The margin not only makes it easier to handle the paper during the printing process, but also gives the image a neutral zone so that the eye focuses on the image. You can either tear your paper to size with a straight-edged ruler or cut it with a guillotine or X-acto knife. Leave at least two straight edges to make registration easier. Place your unprinted paper in a pile beside where you will be printing.

In addition to the final print sheets, don’t forget to cut at least 15 proof sheets (more if you anticipate a number of changes). You can still cut into the block at this stage, removing unwanted areas and making changes to the image. One of the great advantages of making prints is the ability to change the image as you work. Shape them as a sculptor would, removing a bit here and a bit there to reveal what is hidden within the wood.

Each time an impression is made, the image should appear in the same location on the sheet. To make it easier to register your image, choose paper with at least two square, straight edges and cut the proof paper and final print paper so that they are the same size. If your paper has deckle edges that you want to keep, you can make register marks by gluing or taping 1 x 4 inch paper tabs not more than 1/2 inch into the edges of the paper; any farther in and you will lose valuable margin space.

To keep the paper clean while you are handling it, paper holders are a good idea. A tiny bit of ink on your finger will leave fingerprints everywhere if you are not careful. To make the holders, simply cut several 2 x 3 inch pieces of card stock (postcard thickness) and fold them in half. Talc rubbed into your hands is another way to keep your paper smudge-free. The talc soaks up any ink and prevents it from being transferred to the sheet. You can make a little cloth talc bag and put it in your apron pocket.

No rules govern how many impressions or how many changes to the image you can make. You may find that you like your early impressions more than your later ones. You may run off three or a hundred prints. Or you may change the image fifty times, then make an edition of five identical prints. The choice is up to you.

In our age of instant printing, the art of making exact copies of an image is no longer valued as much as it was in the past. Many artists still pride themselves on making exact copies and consistent editions of original prints. However, a growing number of artists are making variations in their editions on purpose to create individual unique prints from the same block. What is important to them is the creation of prints that convey the spirit and vitality of the art.

Woodcut artists create images with the tools of paper, ink and block in much the same way as painters use paint to build an image. For the printmaker, the printing process is an art in itself.

PRINTING BY HAND

Printing blocks by hand involves three simple steps: inking the block, placing a piece of paper over the block, and burnishing the back of the paper until the image has been transferred onto the sheet. With practice and an understanding of the mechanics behind the art, these steps can be mastered in no time.

The Roller and Ink Slab

Before you can ink the block, you will need a roller (also known as a brayer) and an ink slab. A good quality roller is made of urethane rubber and has a sturdy handle and a surface that gives slightly when pressed. Try to steer clear of old gelatinous composition rollers and new leather rollers. The former are water soluble and easily damaged and the latter are used mostly in lithography.

Manufacturers of rollers refer to the hardness or softness of a roller as its durometer. This is expressed as a number ranging from 10 (soft), 30 (firm) to 100 (hard), depending on the compound used. A medium-soft rubber roller between 20 and 40 duro is recommended for relief printmaking. At this hardness, the surface of the rubber gives a little when you push into it with your thumb. If your block is not perfectly flat, this amount of “give” will accommodate any slight variations in the block surface. Avoid a roller made from hard rubber or plastic with a 70 to 100 duro surface. It will not have the flexibility to ink a slightly uneven block.

The roller should be slightly larger then the surface of the block. For small blocks I like to use a Speedball Deluxe soft rubber brayer, which is available in 1 1/2- to 6-inch widths. Made of a natural gum rubber, it has a 20 duro ground finish. I also have an 8-inch-wide polyurethane rubber roller with a 1 1/4-inch diameter and a durometer of 30, and a 6-inch-wide, 2-inch diameter old-fashioned brayer, which I had recast with urethane rubber at a local commercial roller refinisher.

Large hand-inking rollers, cylinders with handles on each end, are sold in a variety of sizes from 10 to 20 inches wide and from 4 1/4 to 10 inches in diameter. A 10-inch diameter roller can ink 10 inches before having to be recharged. Although designed to ink litho stones, these rollers are ideal for printing large woodcuts and engravings.

Clean your brayer after every use. If you are using oil-based inks, clean it with vegetable oil. Wipe the roller first with a slightly oily rag, then wipe it down with a clean rag and a small amount of oil. After months of use, if the roller has a glaze on the surface from the oil, use a rag dampened with mineral spirits to clean it off. Large rollers can be rolled over a clean ink slab dampened with a bit of mineral spirits or vegetable oil and then wiped with a cloth rag. If you are using water-based inks, clean up with water and put a drop of light three-in-one oil into the axle of the roller after every four uses. Finally, store your rollers out of the way on a hook that is large enough to prevent the roller from touching the wall. Never leave the roller in contact with a table or slab. The pressure can distort the surface.

After years of use rollers can lose their original finish. Glazed rollers can be resurfaced at a commercial roller refinisher for a nominal cost. If you have a commercial printshop in your community, ask the printers where they get their rollers refinished.

An ink slab is simply a clean, flat surface on which to roll out the ink. I use an 18 x 20 inch marble slab, but a pane of tempered plate glass, an old litho stone or a piece of plastic work equally well. The material should be heavy enough to prevent it from sliding when you roll the brayer back and forth on it.

Preparing the Ink on the Slab

To prepare the ink for printing, first remove a small amount from the can with an ink knife or putty knife. Remember, no gouging. Skim the ink evenly from the surface. Next, work the ink to make it soft by kneading it on the slab with the ink knife. If mixing colors, use a clean knife for each color. Put a bead line of ink across the top of the slab, then spread it out until you have an even, flat line.

Roll out your ink until it is uniform in consistency on the roller and on the slab. It is always best to start with a small amount of ink and then add more if necessary. To be sure that the roller is fully charged with ink, lift it and let it spin several times so that different parts of the roller contact the slab each time you roll. When the ink is neither too thin nor too thick, it will often make a high hissing sound as you draw the roller back and forth on the slab. Slow rolls across the slab collect more ink on the roller than fast rolls.

Inking the Block

The goal in inking the block is to place a thin, even layer of ink on the block surface. Too much ink will cause the fine lines in the image to fill in, creating a blotched print. Too little ink will create a light print that looks like a bad photocopy. A slow pass across the block with the roller lays down more ink than a quick pass. Large surfaces are inked by making an asterisk-type pattern over the surface, starting from one corner and moving clockwise around the block.

A quick proof of the block will tell you whether you need to add more ink to your ink slab or change your inking technique. For example, if one corner has printed lighter than the rest of the print, you may have missed that area with the brayer. Look over the surface of the block carefully to make sure the ink has been distributed evenly. Is it a good proof? This is largely an aesthetic choice based on how you want the image to print, which might be dark or light and, if you are using a wood block, with all or little of the wood grain showing.

Some artists deliberately roll uneven amounts of ink onto a block to create light areas on the print, or they may use several colored inks at once. They apply the ink at random so no two prints are alike. These prints are referred to as monoprints.

If you don’t want the valleys in a woodcut or engraving to print as fine black lines in your white areas, be careful to ink only the top peaks of the block. To make this easier, simple bearings (runners) can be used to guide the roller over the surface. Take two 1-inch-wide pieces of wood, the same thickness as your block but a little longer, and place them on either side of the block. A roller that is wider than the block can now ride on these side bearings, applying ink only to the uppermost surface of the block. Printing presses like the Vandercook proof press are designed with inking rollers on fixed bearings. They automatically ink only the upper surfaces of blocks.

If you are using very absorbent paper and your block has never been inked before, you may need more ink than usual to make a dark impression. It is best to build the ink up on the surface slowly to allow the block to absorb the ink. Fixing the block to a printing jig with tape (see page 113) makes this easier. With a jig, you don’t need to reposition the block every time you roll it up and you can avoid getting ink on your fingers.

With your brayer charged with ink and the block nearly ready to print, should you go and see a movie with a friend? Not unless you’re using slow-drying rubber-based ink! Oxidizing inks can dry in only a few hours, damaging your roller in the process.

Leonard Baskin. William Blake. 1962. Wood engraving; 4" x 2.75"

Making an Impression

Before you begin printing, it is a good idea to fan out your pile of printing paper to make it easier to pick up each sheet. Pick up the first sheet and, holding it diagonally at opposite ends, place it squarely over the block. If you are using a registration technique, align the lines on the back of your good paper with the lines on your printing jig. Or if you are using paper guides, make sure the paper is squarely in place against the guides. Now place a scrap sheet of letter-sized bond or newsprint over the printing paper. This is what you will burnish to prevent the impression paper from tearing or pilling.

I use a simple handmade jig to hold smaller blocks and for positioning my paper. Tape down the block with masking tape to the jig so that it doesn’t move. With a pencil, mark registration lines on the jig and on the back of the paper. Rather than using a jig for registration, the Japanese carve kento marks (see page 116) directly into their woodcuts. If you use the same size block all the time, you can do this as well.

For burnishing, select a Japanese baren, a wooden or steel spoon, a tool called a folding bone (a tool for folding and creasing paper) and an etcher’s burnisher or any other object with a blunt, smooth surface suitable for applying pressure to a small area. To begin, gently rub the paper so that it adheres to the block. Allow the natural tack of the ink, rather than your hand, to hold the printing paper, because pressure marks from fingers and palms can show through on the final print. Rub evenly and firmly over the entire image area in a circular motion. If you are using a Japanese paper, you will be able to see the image emerge through the back of the paper as you burnish. With heavier paper, you will need to lift the corner now and then to check on the transfer of ink to paper. The amount of pressure used with the baren depends on the effect you are attempting to achieve. Light pressure, as you would expect, produces fainter lines and lighter tones than heavy pressure.

Are you happy with the printed image you can see from the lifted corner? Are the tones and lines printed to your liking? If the answer is yes, then the print is ready to be removed from the block. If it is no, you may want to burnish the print again or roll a little more ink onto the surface of the block while the paper is partially peeled back. However, adding ink is difficult to do without moving the paper off register or touching the paper with the roller. Try holding one end of the paper down with a paperweight and clipping the other end of the paper back with a paper clip while you re-ink areas. This is easier to do on larger blocks than smaller ones.

Once you’re pleased with the impression, lift the printed paper by its corners in one swift motion away from the block surface. If the prints have a lot of ink on the surface, they should be dried in the open air for 12 hours until the ink has had a chance to set. Printed sheets can then be stacked between newsprint for further drying and pressing. Do not stack them directly on top of each other; the image can offset onto the back of the sheet above it. You can also use a drying rack purchased from a printmaking supply store.

George Walker. Curiosity. 1998. Wood engraving; 3" x 2.75"

Dampened papers should be stacked between blotter paper (available at art supply stores) or paper towels and left to dry flat. Place a sheet of plywood on top of the stack to prevent the paper from buckling. If you are printing multiple colors, don’t let the dampened paper dry out between colors or the registration will be compromised.

The most important thing to remember here is to relax, have fun and remember that it takes time to learn to print well. The best teachers are practice and patience. Give yourself permission to fail on your first trial runs and gradually improve your method to suit your style.

Color Printing

The most difficult part of color printing by hand is registration: ensuring that each block prints in the exact same place on the sheet every time. The only way to do this successfully is to use a registration system.

The Japanese system of registration uses kento marks, shallow grooves cut into the lower-right corner and bottom center of the block (see illustration page 116). The two notches are cut just deep enough (not more than 1/16 inch) to allow the paper to sit in place without shifting. To make the center kento mark, cut straight down with a knife, making a line about 1 1/2 inches long. The two lines of the corner mark – each 1 1/2 inches long – are cut the same way. A chisel is then used to remove about 1/16 inch of material from the inside edges of the lines cut by the knife.

Before cutting your kento marks, you must determine the margins of your paper so that you can position the marks outside them. Kento marks are only printed onto the paper when you want to transfer the marks to other blocks for carving additional colors. If you are printing one color, the marks are used for positioning the image squarely on the paper.

The Chinese registration system uses two stationary tables (see illustration below). The pile of printing paper is clamped to one table and the block is inked and positioned on another table. The sheets are flipped down in turn onto the block for printing. After a sheet has been printed, it is dropped into the space between the tables. A new block is positioned on the block table for each new color.

Some woodcut artists use a pin system for registration. Art supply stores sell metal registration pins or you can make your own pins from a piece of wooden dowel. The pins are stuck into the top of a printing jig (see illustration below) to line up with holes punched at the top margins of the impression paper with a standard one-hole or three-hole punch. After printing, the punched margin is removed.

In planning a full-color woodcut, the first task is to work out your design and colors on a master drawing. Use the master drawing as a guide to determine where each color will print. Trace in black each separate color from the master onto new sheets of paper. This is the process of making color separations. These separations are then transferred (see transferring drawing page 72) onto multiple blocks for cutting. The key block is the first block to be cut and the last block to be printed. The key block is the black (darkest color) printing block. The printing order is usually from lightest to darkest color.

After the first color is printed (usually the lightest color, yellow), subsequent color blocks are registered by aligning the previous color printed with the key block. Print a proof of the key block on tracing paper so that you can see through the paper to the new block to align it. Once you’ve determined the position of the new block, affix the block to the printing jig with tape.

The two basic color printing methods are reduction block and multiple block (see pages 133 and 134). In the reduction process, you use only one block and cut very little of the image out before you start printing the first color. The master drawing is used as a reference and retraced onto the block after each impression so that you can see subsequent areas to be cut away. Start your printing with the lightest color and gradually cut away your image until you are printing the final, and darkest, color. Clean the block with a dry cloth after each color and, if possible, let it dry before printing the next color.

The disadvantage of the reduction method is that the block is destroyed in the process of making the print because each previously printed color is cut away. For example, let’s take an uncarved block and print a flat yellow rectangle from it. Next we’ll carve some lines on the block and print them using transparent blue registered over top of the yellow rectangle. What we’ll now see is a printed image of yellow lines with a green background. We can’t print the open flat yellow again because we’ve reduced the printing surface of the block. We then cut more lines into the block and print a transparent red registered over the blue and yellow printing. The final print has yellow lines, green lines and a brown background. Because of the cuts we’ve made, we can’t go back and print the blue and yellow combination.

In multiblock printing, a new block is cut for each color. The first block that is cut is called the key block. Like the black outline in a coloring book, it carries all the details you want to see in the final print plus, in the Japanese method, a set of kento marks. The image and the kento marks on the key block are then printed in black onto thin washi sheets, one for each color block. These printed sheets are pasted face down onto the color blocks using the transfer method on page 73. The kento marks and the parts of the image that you want to print in a particular color are then carved into the block for that color, through the paper. When you are ready to print, begin with the lightest color and finish with the darkest one.

American artist Holly Greenberg uses a digital camera to take a photo of her subject, then brings this image into Adobe Photoshop on her computer, where she manipulates it with filters and effects. When the image is the way she wants it, she prints out a full-color image from her inkjet printer and carefully traces each color onto multiple lino blocks for cutting. You can also use the computer to create color separations and to view color combinations before you print, although you will notice a difference between the transmissive color on your monitor and the reflective color on your paper.

If your blocks are misaligned, thin lines of misregistered color will appear in the final print. To prevent these unsightly lines from appearing, the artist must “trap” the problem before it occurs. Trapping is a method of registering the image to trap the next color (see illustration below). There are two types of trapping: chokes and swells. In a choke, the image on one block is printed slightly larger than the one on the next block to choke the image inside it. In a swell, the image on one block is made larger to block out the image on the previous block.

I like to watercolor over my black proof prints to determine which colors will work best with my image. It’s great fun experimenting with roller blends as well as overprinting with transparent color and finishing varnishes. Roller blends are made by putting two colors onto one roller. A bead of each color is placed side by side on the ink slab, blended in the middle with the roller and then rolled onto the surface of the block for a three-color effect. Because the colors will eventually blend into one color on the roller, the print runs are shorter for roller blends.

I highly recommend that every artist experiment with the
possibilities of color.