Overdue for an update. Back in April I wrote an article about how I might combine coffee toning with my cyanotype prints for my Urban Ashes project. The thinking was that the Prussian blue cyanotype print color did not entirely resonate with this particular project’s narrative for me and I wanted to make this subject have more of a ‘smoky’ appearance. The coffee toned print did accomplish some of that aspect, while still something seemed lacking, as I could not locally control the toning effect.
While thinking about other alternatives, I became fascinated with the potential of gel printing to add various colors to the cyanotypes. Once I was over-the-rubicon by toning the cyanotypes, I might as well consider other printing and color options. Thus this summer I purchased a small 8 x 10″ Gelli printing “plate’ to experiment with, as I had plenty of acrylic and watercolors to mess around with. That experience was interesting enough that I purchased another Gelli plate that was a bit larger at 9 x 12″. Then after a set of experiments, I then upsized and purchased another Gelli that is 12 x 14″ (using a mask to gel print over 11 x 14″ cyanotypes). For my cyanotype printing process, this maxed me, out as at the moment the largest cyanotype print I can make is 11 x 14”. Thus my journey exploring one-off monotype prints was taking off.
Early on with the gel printing I quickly realized that my heavy (tube) acrylic paints were a bit problematic to work with on the gel plates, so I acquired a range of liquid acrylic paint colors. Much easier to work with! The one big issue that I was struggling with is finding the right transparent acrylic paints that allow the underlying cyanotype print to be seen, as some acrylic paint can become very opaque blocking the cyanotype details and features.
While complaining about the acrylic transparency issues on Facebook regarding one my early monotypes, my friend Diana Jeon suggested that I try some Intaglio printers ink. This is used for block and litho printing and is very transparent. What is nice is that many of these Intaglio inks are now water-washable and no where as toxic to work with as in the recent past. So I purchased a sample 6-pack set of Akua (pronounced ‘Agua‘) colors and I have been pretty elated with the printing results.
The flip side is that these inks are very transparent! So where they over-lap, I get some ‘interesting’ (unanticipated) colors. I am now spending more time recently studying color-theory! LoL
The monotype above is a combination of three Akua inks layered over pigment ink that I printed with my Canon on Red River’s Aurora 100% cotton rag. Probably worth noting that one different with the Intaglio inks is that they ‘dry’ by absorption into the (paper) medium, unlike acrylic paint which will air dry. The Intaglio ink folks highly recommend not printing on glossy paper, which I did anyways to see what happens and it was ‘different’! Btw, the other matte ink jet paper that I use that also works is the Hahnemuehle Photo Rag, a nice 100% cotton paper, perhaps twice as expensive as the Red River Aurora.
As you may have noted above, for my Urban Ashes project I have shifted to pigment ink prints for my base print and I am not as keen using a cyanotype. Since blue is one of those basic colors, it is almost impossible (for me) with the Intaglio inks to get some color combinations (see two color gel-cyanotype example below). So for the past month, I have been evaluating monotypes using gel printing over pigment prints for the Urban Ashes project.
And with gel printing on pigment prints, I can also upsize the base print image to 16 x 20″ pigment print in combination with a 16 x 20″ Gelli plate. I anticipate printing this base print on a 20 x 24″ sheet of Red River Aurora rag. Both the 16 x 20″ Gelli and a 50 foot roll of 24″ wide Aurora are now on order (while my print template is already made).
Fun, fun, fun! Gel printing during the day, cyanotype printing after twilight.
Make every day an Earth Day
Doug
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Artist book still available:
The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow, an artist book from Singular Images Press, 2022, $60.00 (CA sales tax for those residing in the USA) plus shipping expenses. Message me douglas.stockdale.artist@gmail.com
Singular Images 