#schnellpresse

[blackheartpress]

So I heard you like colours. Lots of colours. Thought I might post some. On a press. A stone lithography “Schnellpresse” by Maschinenfabrik Johannisberg from 1897. Photos taken Feb 2019, during a two week workshop led by Master Printer Ernst Hanke and Patrick Wagner. 1. Warm orange for Amalia Årfelt’s cat 2. Adding more green to light green ink on the rollers for pass #2 of the green for trees in a BHP print 3. Tapdowns 4. Breaking the green from pic 2 by adding some reddish-brown. With all the rollers inked up there’s a lot of ink in the press, adding this much red-family ink will just “break” the colour, not change it dramatically. 5. Cover white (yuck) based light green on the left, ultramarine base violet on the right 6. Violet on the left, transparent base light green (much nicer) on the right, from some days earlier. Just a good combo. 7. blue to light blue fade on the left side, beige (a very transparent warm grey) on the right 8. Magenta, green and warm brown 9. Beige (a very transparent broken orange) and warm red 10. Yeah I’m not gonna write down all those colours. Ok whatever: Magenta to warm red to pink (transparent magenta) to purple to warm red to pink to purple for another BHP print.

Wanna see the prints too?

[blackheartpress]

With all this *academic unemployment* time on my hands I've decided to focus a bit more on making printmaking content. A while ago Hanke Ernst and I were printing with the amazing Amalia Årfelt at Litografiska museet. I did some filming with my phone and a tripod, and not too much checking, hence the headless printer... Get in touch with Amalia for your own copy of the cat family, I framed my printer's proof and enjoy looking at it every day. Like and share <3

[blackheartpress]

(Even more) Schnellpresse Printing Turns out I never posted this vid to tumblr. Might as well do it now. Video kinda says it all, I added explanatory text to most everything you see in the video. The prints made in this video can be obtained at Ed Art or via me directly, get in touch. The dog’s name is Happy, she’s not the youngest anymore, but then again, who is.

Why should you watch: If interested in lithography, or printmaking in general. If you like old industrial machines, gears, cast iron that moves. If you’re interested in creative processes and like to see ppl draw / work. Mountains, there’s great scenery too, but it’s mostly about working on a machine, indoors. Like, share, subscribe, feedback if you find it enjoyable. It’s your feedback that makes content creators keep on doing what they do.

Stones: You can contact Ernst Hanke if in need of stones. As you can see in the video he’s got about 14 tons of them, and is looking to part with his collection. He’s located in Switzerland, and you should roughly be aware of shipping costs / possibilities before getting in touch with him, just to save the both of you a lot of emailing.

[blackheartpress]

Schnellpresse Assembly in Småland

Hyperlapse video of the assembly of a Maschinenfabrik Johannisberg Steindruck Schnellpresse from 1904, in seizure inducing speed. Mostly to show all you wond...

Remember a while ago, when I posting all these links to videos of me working on Ernst Hanke’s Steindruck Schnellpresse? And the Kickstarter thing I did to move what is now Patrick Wagner’s Schnellpresse to Småland? All that feels like some far away dream, but it actually happened, and the video in this post is proof (that, and the 7.5ton press that is now standing in my barn). It’s sadly a bit hectic, lots of high-speed people running around the press, as it slowly grows into the beast that it is when fully assembled. With Beethoven’s 9th, the popular segment, because everything is better with Beethoven’s 9th. The man in the Elmo Cosplay is Willy Etter, he’s the Intergalactic Press Healer that made the entire assembly possible. Imagine that there’s people out there that know 114 year old machines by heart, bolt by bolt. Absolutely amazing. And finally, as the tumblr we know and loves mutilates itself into yet another bowdlerized platform on the 17th, and while BHP isn’t a NSFW blog, I want to let all the weird and kinky tumblrs out there know how much I admire and miss them. Such a large part of our lives now happen digitally, on some platform or another, and most of them have strict rules about what content (parts of yourself) you get to show / share with others. When chosing tumblr as the new home for BHP after Blogspot, it was the weird/kinky/whatever side of tumblr that made me want to be here, where it felt people could be talented artists or avid fans of this or that, but also queer, horny or just plain weird, all in one fantastic mix.

[blackheartpress]

From Switzerland to Sweden. From lovely weather to cold and rainy autumn days in the forest. The big, partially crowd-funded move of my Schnellpresse from 1904 is happening!

Proper update when not so terribly busy.

[blackheartpress]

Greetings from Schnellpresse Bootcamp

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!

[blackheartpress]

Ernst Hanke and BHP taming the Schnellpresse for some stone lithography fun. Watch, enjoy, like and share!

[blackheartpress]

1. Bright yellow on the rollers, gif glitches colours a bit. When adding colour to the Schnellpresse, you start on those rollers. They ink up the ink table, which builds the colour reservoir. As the stone travels under the cylinder, the ink table inks up the other rollers that ink up the stone. 2. You can change the angle of the rollers. This creates friction, which helps evening out the ink reservoir. Rings at the ends of the rollers regulate how far the rollers can travel left / right. When printing a rainbow roll this also affects the broadness of the blend. 3. Ernst Hanke spot-regulating the amount of ink with a strip of proof print. As the ink table emerges from under the ink rollers he lays a sheet of paper on the area that carries too much ink. Special care needs to be taken to not have the paper end on the ink table, and of course to keep hands clear of any moving rollers. Works like a dream once you’ve overcome your fear of the press. 4. & 5. Tap downs over draw downs, all day. 6. Keeping it easy. Schnellpresse lithography lives from being able to print many layers point on point. Transparency of inks is thus a very important factor. 7. Colour planning makes a world of difference. When moving from one colour to the next, you have two options: drawing out a lot of colour as seen in pic 3, and then overpowering it with a related, darker colour. This will work for a warm red as shown above, but not with a clear magenta pink. The other option is a full clean. I learned A LOT about good project planning and work flows / orders in the last two weeks. This all applies to Schnellpresse printing in which the key is printed first and the stone stays locked in the press at all times, gets de-greased, counteretched and material added / removed for all further colours. This is the only way that point on point printing can be achieved without a massive headache ;) 8. This is what I mean with point on point. The stone is printed in red first, then the colour is changed (by overpowering) to a transparent blue, resulting in this purplish brown. A second colour proof is printed by running a red sheet through the now blue press. The entire print is now purplebrown. The stone is gummed, then I “open up” the drawing with very strong acid, burning the lower parts of the text (no blue will overprint, “returning” to the first red layer that is already on the paper). Once satisfied the entire edition is run through the transparent blue press, result as seen on this pic. 9. BHP, Erik and Ernst Hanke on the Johannisberger Schnellpresse from 1897. 10. A better but still terrible pic of a print of mine made on this press, an edition of 40, printed with 5 passes in just one day.