[Baren] Daily Digest

Today's postings

[Baren 32976] Re: Baren Digest (old) V38 #3829 ("Marilynn Smith")
[Baren 32977] Re: New Baren Digest (HTML) V38 #3829 (Mar 11, 2007) (Lynn Starun)
[Baren 32978] Re: New Baren Digest (HTML) V38 #3829 (Mar 11, 2007) ("Mike Lyon")
[Baren 32979] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification (Blog Manager)
[Baren 32980] Re: New Baren Digest (Text) V38 #3829 (Mar 11, 2007) ("aimee")
[Baren 32981] Sketches to blocks using copying pencils? (David Harrison)

Message 1
From: "Marilynn Smith"
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:29:48 -0700
Subject: [Baren 32976] Re: Baren Digest (old) V38 #3829
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Jeanne, your site is indeed wonderful. So glad to hear you are once again
painting. You have such a great talent, congrulations. Artist block is a
funny thing, but once you bet it usually the work is better, you will find
that you have grown in the time away. Will be interested in seeing your
newest work as it developes

Marilynn

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Message 2
From: Lynn Starun
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 10:20:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Baren 32977] Re: New Baren Digest (HTML) V38 #3829 (Mar 11, 2007)
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Hi Everybody,
I've been off on a tangent that started with the idea
of printing relief prints with a letterpress printer.
So far I have had better success with type than with
relief blocks. I have a feeling I may need to hand
roll them. At any rate, I came across this
interesting video on YouTube of someone making their
own wood type and I wonder if anyone knows what kind
of tool they are using. It' seems to stay at a fixed
depth and it seems to me it would be handy for some
kinds of woodblock work. I have tendonitis problems
so I'm always looking for a way to save wear and tear
on my hands. Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP6SEe_an_I

Lynn

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Message 3
From: "Mike Lyon"
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:52:49 -0500
Subject: [Baren 32978] Re: New Baren Digest (HTML) V38 #3829 (Mar 11, 2007)
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The guy who put this up on YouTube wrote:
"This video shows a block of end grain maple being engraved on a New Hermes
pantograph, on its way to becoming a piece of wood type for letterpress
printing."

Pantograph: an instrument for copying a plane figure to a desired scale,
consisting of styluses for tracing and copying mounted on four jointed rods
in the form of a parallelogram with extended sides.

New Hermes pantography is a 1930's invention -- you can read about it at
http://www.gravograph.com/usa/About%20Us/hermes_engraver.php

The thing pictured is kinda like a router-bit mounted into a pantograph --
you can't see it in the movie, but the router is moved manually and allows
scaling up or down from a source object which is off screen -- the operator
moves a stylus around a letter-form and the router is moved proportionately,
so it makes it easier to produce copies of objects to various scales.

Mike

Mike Lyon
Kansas City, MO
http://mlyon.com

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Message 4
From: Blog Manager
Date: 12 Mar 2007 03:55:34 -0000
Subject: [Baren 32979] Baren Member blogs: Update Notification
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Message 5
From: "aimee"
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:29:17 -0800
Subject: [Baren 32980] Re: New Baren Digest (Text) V38 #3829 (Mar 11, 2007)
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hello bareneers and -esses. I have, as usual, been lurking in the
background, paying close attention to all the conversing, communing, &
commending going on....Now I have a leetle problem I would like to bring
before you: I finally got into my studio to Print The Pig, and I seem to
have a problem with my ink---I decided it's the ink, because I tried it on
several old blocks--wood and lino--and the result is the same. I am using
Daniel Smith water-based relief ink, just trying to get this little piggie
in the mail (so none of this emoting over the moku-hanga process, just going
the straight cigar...). But it looks alot like goma-zuri, well sorta like
goma-zuri. It rolled out on the glass and on the block acting quite normal,
but printed in blotches. When I removed my paper, the ink looked as if it
had separated on the linoleum block. I talked to Daniel Smith, the most
they could come up with was that my ink was old. Of course there doesn't
seem to be a date on the tubes, they may be 5 or 6 years old, and have been
kept in a cool (possibly very cool) dry place...Has anyone had this
experience? I have over $100 of inks here; I don't want to deep-6 them if
there is something I can add or do. I tried mixing in a little bowl,
mixnmixnmix, and yet when I pallet-knifed them on my glass, there were
little dots (bubbles? dots.) of what I thought might be pigments. So my
test prints have little sand-worms throughout. I tried adding some D.S.
transparency medium because I had it, and really did want some transparency
anyway; that did nothing. My neighbor Carole Baker suggested perhaps I could
try gum arabic, presumably to glue the pigment back together, but I haven't
tried that yet... Just thought I'd throw this out there meanwhile to see if
anyone has had this experience and CONQUERED! it.....

Thanks for any suggestions---Aimee

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Message 6
From: David Harrison
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2007 12:56:11 +0000
Subject: [Baren 32981] Sketches to blocks using copying pencils?
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I was just talking to a gentlemen who runs bookbinding courses locally.

He was ex-Oxford University Press going back to the year dot, and
mentioned that my nipping press should properly be called a 'copying
press' as it was probably made for that purpose instead.

Apparently a copying pencil would be used to make a drawing (or copy
correspondence, etc) and this would be pressed to dampened tissue paper
in the copy press, transferring a duplicate which would be right-reading
when read through the reverse face of the tissue.

The copying pencils had a core which (according to this link
http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/bpg/annual/v17/bp17-05.html ) was part clay,
part graphite, plus an aniline dye.

I wonder how well this process could be adapted to transferring an
initial sketch to blocks? Perhaps making the reversed sketch using the
copy pencil, moistening the sketch-paper or block, then pressing like a
crazy person until the design crosses over...

Just a thought.

David H

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Baren Archives

[Baren] - the International Forum for Woodblock Printmaking

Volume: 38 / Number: 3830

Monday, 12th of March, 2007

Today's postings

End of [Baren] Digest