All this week I have the extreme pleasure (and honour) to work on a Johannisberger Schnellpresse from 1897 with the legendary Ernst Hanke, from “Steindruckerei Erika & Ernst Hanke”. While you might not know of the guy, you’ve surely seen his craft in one of many lithographies he’s printed together with his longest collaborating artist, Paul Wunderlich (follow this link to a video showing them working together back in the day, starts at 10:16).
Schnellpresse lithography is fucking amazing. You need to have your litho down, and then there’s a whole new world to learn, lots of things you wouldn’t get away with on a handpress, and so much more fun with colours.
In the above gifs we’re printing a stone of mine, first a layer of warm reds fading into warm green, then burning parts of the tusche wash with hot acid, “opening up” the image, then printing a layer of warm green fading into deeper green. The burned tusche wash is dropped point on point on the first colour, resulting in a dark brown with red (the burned wash parts) shining through in the lower parts, while the upper part of the fade (warm green + deeper green) creates a wash layer with a much larger tonal range. We then print a third layer, with the tusche wash burned again, so that only the greasiest, darkest parts still print.
The stone remains in the press, is degreased, counter etched, some parts are stopped out with acidic gum, then a flat is established with asphaltum, printed twice in extremely transparent warm brown, the second drop with a little fade upwards, resulting in the stone coloured background.
The pics don’t do this print justice, so far we’ve been printing every day from dawn till way past dusk (easy to say when living in Scandinavia in the winter...), shall try to get some daylight pics tomorrow.
Either way, stay fierce!