Printmaking - Carborundum
So, carborundum. Above you can see my smaller print made with carborundum powder and gesso on a metal plate and printed via press using oil based printing ink.
I did not have any specific idea when I started but then it started to move towards waves. I used a bit too much sand/powder so it turned too dark and flat and I did not get lighter areas back or they vanished during inking. I should have tried the powder mixed in gesso, now I just dropped it on top of the painted gesso and it was hard to sprinkle very light layers and even if you did, the loose powder from other parts likely got where it shouldn’t.
I did not have images on the inking phase, it is a very messy phase (same as in dry point) so quite impossible to take our camera while working. Even though it was messy I managed to do all prints using just one pair of gloves. I was trying not to be too wasteful with the materials.
I also used some dry point in the plates (the small lines).
I like, again, the plate more than the print itself, but this was anyway just a practice with not much thought in the design either. I could have worked on the plate more, if we had more time, but since this was practice this will suffice. (I wouldn’t have redone carborundum, but made more dry point etching to get some details back and maybe even trying to clean some of the sand off, and when printing clean the plate better).
The plates after printing:
(paper: Hahnemühle watercolor paper cut to pieces)
