RELIEF PRINTING

An odd medium revitalized by an odd community.

In terms of commercial use, digital and ink-jet printing has replaced earlier, more laborious techniques. Having lost their comparative efficiency, practices like linoblock carving, photopolymer plate-making, and manual typesetting have been reclaimed by artists as methods of creative expression. I, too, have dabbled with these techniques.

Linoblock

For the project below, one of my paper sketches was translated into a digital vector-based illustration. It became increasingly apparent that the final print I envisioned would not be able to fit on the linoleum blocks I had available. To account for this, the vector file was divided into three sections. Each was cut at bizarre angles to minimize visible gaps in the final print. The digital file was then printed and traced onto the linoleum.

Using a v-shaped nib, I carved away the linoleum around the traced image in long, thin strips. With the blocks complete, I puzzled them together and rolled ink across the uncarved "plateaus" of the linoleum. Acid-free paper was then sandwiched between the inked matrix and a cardboard barrier. The whole sandwich was cranked though an etching press to transfer the ink over to the paper. With the matrices arranged together, the design was 27 inches long.

Polymer Plate

To be frank, the dissolved polymer plate smells like onions fried in motor oil. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For this process to work, the areas that should not hold ink in the final print need to be entirely black; the areas that should have ink must be colorless. I printed a negative image of my snail onto a waterproof inkjet film sheet. Sequestered away in a photographer's darkroom, I later pressed the sheet against a pre-cut polymer plate. While the next step could have been done with sunlight and a flat surface, the edges of the illustration are sharper if the plate is burned on a vacuum-sealed light table.

Returning to the darkroom, I placed the burned plate into a shallow tray of almost unbearably hot water. I ever-so-gently scrubbed at it with a toothbrush until the unexposed areas of the plate dissolved into the aforementioned onion-motor-oil soup. After that, I ran the plate back through the exposure unit one more time to ensure the thinnest sections of the linework would remain intact. That hardened matrix was then inked to produce four-inch prints of my snail.

Vandercook Press

Among other things, I do consider myself a typographer. Fussing with the curvature of letterforms while hunched over a computer screen is indeed a pastime of mine, but there is something to be said about holding metal type pieces in your hands. Arranging the pieces into complete sentences is a feat unto itself, as everything must be placed upside down and backwards. Then there is the matter of situating the metal stanzas on the letterpress bed, squeezing it all together with a tight row of wooden furniture along the horizontal and vertical axes of the composition.

There is no such thing as a young Vandercook Press. It has been quite the privilege to work with a model still in operation. Once her wheels are turning, the swath of rollers will ink themselves, more or less. The distribution roller shifts from left to right, ensuring that a dollop of ink dropped into a roller gap is evenly painted across the machine. After some finagling, a paper sheet can be slid under the grippers of the cylinder bearer. There's a massive, clunky handle that I have to crank with both hands to run the paper over the press bed and the matrix atop it. Once the crank reaches the end of the bed, the cylinder bearer spits out a fresh print.