[paceprints]

These are scrapers, traditionally used to scrape off the burr in engraving and drypoint.

If you want to make very rough, scratchy marks on a plate, this would be the tool to use. 

[paceprints]

A scraper is used on a Robert Mangold plate.

[paceprints]

Various burins

[paceprints]

Master Printer Yasu Shibata working on James Turrell’s Suite from Aten Reign, a suite of three Ukiyo-e woodcuts in an edition of 30.

[paceprints]

The burin is used for engraving, a technique in which the tool is held nearly parallel to the copper plate to carve a deep, wide channel. Unlike drypoint, engraving completely removes the copper in its path and leaves no burr, leaving a very crisp line.  

[paceprints]

A burnisher (left), is used to work reductively on an intaglio plate. Using a lubricant, a printer can burnish down drypoint burrs, the tooth of an aquatint, or other ink-holding areas of a copperplate to lighten or entirely remove parts of the image.

A ball burnisher (right) can be used for smaller-scale alterations. If desired, fine jeweler’s sandpaper or metal polish can be used after burnishing to return the copper to its original surface. 

If used on a pre-aquatinted plate, the effect is much like an eraser on charcoal.

[paceprints]

Chuck Close’s 84-color woodcut Self-Portrait in progress at Master Printer Karl Hecksher’s studio. 

[paceprints]

Palette knives + ink. 

[paceprints]

Artist Dan Walsh using a ball burnisher on Plate I of Folio C, his newest edition with Pace Prints.

[paceprints]

Drypoint needles incise a line directly into a copper plate, throwing up a burr of excess material—both of which hold ink during the printing process. Depending on depth, the printed line can appear delicate and thin or dark and textured.

The needle on the right is diamond-tipped, which creates a very smooth line. Needles made of steel (or alternative tools like a household nail) can be used to create jagged, varied lines.

[paceprints]

Roulette wheels feature regular or irregular patterns of raised lines or dots which, when rolled across a plate, incise corresponding marks into the copper. These tools, like mezzotint rockers, create tone mechanically, but are used selectively because of their small size.

[paceprints]

Printer Kyle Simon channeling The Outlaw Josey Wales to dry two Qin Feng monotype plates. 

[paceprints]

Mezzotint rockers are used to create a black, velvety, even tone on the plate. If desired, an artist can then work reductively into this tone with a burnisher. The final result is similar to that of an aquatint, but is created using mechanical rather than chemical means. 

[paceprints]

Printer Justin Israels uses an over-sized roller to ink James Turrell’s Suite from Aten Reign (2014), detailed above. 

The background was created using oil-based ink. The central form, inspired by Turrell’s monumental, site-specific installation Aten Reign (2013) at the Guggenheim Museum, was made using the Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock technique by Master Printer Yasu Shibata. 

[paceprints]

Small brayers (left) are used to apply ink selectively to intaglio plates. They are commonly used to apply more than one color of ink on the same plate, a technique called à la poupée ink wiping. 

A brayer of medium size (right) is useful for rolling ink onto large areas of an intaglio plate. We use large brayers to apply heat-activated grounds to copperplates, and even bigger ones to roll smooth, even flats of ink onto relief blocks.

[paceprints]

We’re back on Tumblr! Look forward to behind the scenes shots of our master printers at work, as well as a Tools of the Trade series, where we discuss the beautiful objects behind our extraordinary editions.

Love,

Pace Prints

[paceprints]

#studio #paceprints #printmaking