Although I don’t print much or often, it’s nice to have somewhere to dry the results. Since Poppy was born a lot of stuff has migrated to the garage and eaten into my working space. I thought about installing an overhead drying rack. It should be easier to accommodate than one of those wire-mesh kinetic sculptures, and a lot less expensive. The online stores sell the usual variety (made of wood, wire and king-size marbles) for a crazy price: around £100 for something that might cost £15-20 to fabricate on a bad day.

So what about making my own? There were a few targets to consider. It would have to be quick to make. If I took a day building it, I might as well put in a day’s freelancing and earn enough for two shop-bought racks. It should be made from everyday materials and easy to duplicate anywhere.

An evening’s rummage on eBay later, I had bought half a gross of bulldog clips and 200 large wooden beads (folksy bracelets, for the making of). Add to that some heavyweight printer paper and a few yards of genuine NATO-grade nylon cord (!) from the army surplus store.

Bulldog clips will spot with rust over time and that could stain prints. So I designed a PDF template for a paper cover for the clip jaws: print, cut, fold and slot into place. Repeat 36 times per rack. Mail me or leave a comment if you want the template.

I used needle files to bore out the beads until the cord would fit. For this you need a small needle file and something really, really interesting on TV for the next few hours.

Then thread on three or four beads, a clip, some more beads, a clip… you get the idea. Be sure to tie a good hefty knot at each end of the cord when you’re done, or you’ll have little round things all over the floor, just where you can slip on them. It’s a good idea to tie the some intermediate knots in the cord so that if one end-knot works loose, the whole lot of beads and clips doesn’t cover your studio.

After that, hanging is the easy part. A heavy-duty hook screwed into rafters on either side of the garage, and it was ready to go up. It works a treat. The beads keep the clips a couple of inches apart, to keep printed sheets from touching and to give your fingers room to grab a single clip. If you hit the assembly, even really hard, everything just drops back into place. If a paper cover gets dirty, replace it. Simple! Two racks cost around £12-£15 and an evening watching crummy movies on satellite TV.

One fact that that survived the fog of new-parenthood was about Poppy’s visual development. For the first weeks she could barely see any distance, and couldn’t differentiate one colour from the next. Apparently a lot of this isn’t to do with the eye, but with neurology — visual processing takes a while to perfect. Little ones like pictures full of sharp edges and high contrast. We noticed that she’s taken quite a shine to a wood engraving we have on the wall. She can stare at it for minutes at a time and seems fascinated. This was food for thought.

All Poppy’s baby books are full of bright primaries or pastels. There’s very little with strong, monochrome images that might appeal to her. So I thought about making some very simple designs and binding them into a little concertina book. I’ll start with letter and number shapes, musical notes, domino and dice spots, spirals, zigzags and meanders, and so on. Will she come to understand any designs? I doubt the cognitive tools are there just yet. But who knows? Maybe when she encounters writing and other symbols elsewhere she’ll recognize something. And we’ll have a book to preserve, drool and all, as a keepsake.

Here is a stab at letter shapes. As usual I struggled to ink evenly, but then it’s a first proof. I’ll post later — and hopefully more interesting — designs when they’re ready.

Some time ago I decided that I wanted a Real Press (TM). There are some lovely products out there. Unfortunately ‘out there’ includes the price. So I saved, and waited. And waited…

Design

Two people came to my rescue. The first was Charles Morgan. He’s well-known on the Baren mailing list for sound technical advice. He mailed me plans for a hydraulic press — basically a wood and angle-iron frame, a wood platen, and a bottle jack to impart pressure. Here is a link.

Then my brother, an engineer, saw the plans and suggested making the frame and platen from steel. He designed the basic frame and the box structure for the platen, and e-mailed the plans to a friendly steel fabrication company. They make such large structures that the press could be created from their offcuts. A month or so later they sent it to me, dolled up in a cheery blue marine paint. And what a beauty it was!

The whole ensemble, frame and platen, came to around 60kg (~120lbs). No light-weight! My brother had designed a robust ‘push-up’ press, where the jack raises the platen and presses it against a top plate. I was a little nervous of putting my hands in the press in case the heavy box-shaped platen should slip off the jack head and crush fingers.

Redesign

I decided to remove the platen, up-end the frame, and try for a chunky example of Charles’s ‘push-down’ pattern. So I drew rough plans for a thick plywood platen, a top structure to hold the bungee ropes in place, and a socket of some sort to keep the jack central.

The wooden bits

The plans refined themselves as I went. The platen first: two layers of 18mm (3/4″) plywood, cut to fit between the uprights, with pad-eyes screwed and glued in to hold the bungee ropes. I used resin glue — supposed to be stronger than the wood itself — to join the two layers of ply.

To decide where to put the pad-eyes, I had to first design the superstructure. In the end I settled on yet another sheet of ply, slotted into the top of the frame. It has rope-guides made from lengths of quadrant-section wood glued together, sanded smooth at the joins, mitred and fixed to the plate. A hole either side of the guide would give me a smooth run for the bungee cord at the top of the press — this should help prevent fraying. Everything was carefully sanded smooth just in case. Now I knew where the cord would run, I could fix the pad-eyes to the platen below. Easy!

Then I took a heavy piece of scrap flooring wood to use for a jack-head socket. It would need clamping to the top plate of the press. I bodged the whole thing with scraps of MDF, some M6 bolts and wing-nuts. A wide-bore hole underneath made an adequate socket.

The eagle-eyed reader will notice that all these pieces are removable. Should I decide to improve a part, I just remove it from the frame and build afresh. The frame itself hasn’t been touched since I turned it upside-down.

Twangy bits

I bought a few different bungee cord fittings to see which was best. Straight ‘octopus’ ropes — the ones you secure a tarpaulin with — can be dodgy. If they work loose you risk a metal hook flailing at your face. After seeing pictures of eye surgery following such accidents, I chickened out and made cord loops with plastic connectors. Even if these break there won’t be a metal hook zinging around! You can adjust the plastic connectors without removing the cord. And there’s another bonus. The black cord and matt black connectors look way cooler.

Finishing touches

Finishing took a few more days. I glued thin plates of MDF above and below the platen to protect the ply from denting under pressure.

Then it was varnish time. Three brushes’ worth! Method: dip least-ruined brush in tin. Apply varnish. Pick brush hairs out from sticky goo. Cuss and repeat.

Aftermath

All that remained was waiting for a couple of weeks until I was in a tidy mood to clean a sackful of sawdust and cuttings from the floor, dust every surface in the garage, and cough myself raw when the dust-mask clogged up.

Since then I spent a few more weeks racking my brains for the next woodblock design. Funny how ideas always flourish when I have other things to do, and evaporate the instant I’m free.

Naming

Every arrival needs a moniker. Some choices, however obvious, might offend. So ‘Compact-A-Pet’ and ‘I Can’t Believe I Had Fingers’ were out. I fell back on the classics and chose the much gentler ‘Blue Meanie’.

Testing

In the end I used a couple of old blocks — the mushroom and the beetle from earlier posts — and tried them out. They both printed a treat. The beetle filled in a little because of shallow gouge-cuts and tons of pressure.

How is the press to use? Easy! The jack fits and stays put. A dozen or so cranks are enough to bring the platen down onto the print sandwich. Another couple of cranks and you can hear the compression creaks. (At least I assume that is what’s going on, as nothing seems to bend). Then you hit the release valve on the jack and the bungee cords pull everything back off the sandwich.

All my previous attempts at printing have been very blotchy — partly from trying to ink and press slightly uneven blocks, partly through my own sloppiness.

I used the same Lawrence ‘GB’ washable oil-based ink and cheapish paper as before. But the results from the press were far cleaner than anything I’d achieved to date. The ink transferred far more evenly. Now I have to work out an acceptable compromise between quantity of ink applied, pressure, thickness of packing (with felt the paper embosses like crazy under this load!), choice of paper, and so on.

I don’t care if it takes a lot of practice get the mix right. The press is a versatile tool and a joy to use. One day I’ll be its match.

Last year my uncle and cousin visited from the States. During their visit we went to Belas Knap. On leaving Oxford, aim your car at Winchcombe and follow the back roads. You will follow a deep, twisting valley that heads west until the land unfolds. Along the way is a sign that points you left, walking through woods and up a steep incline onto the ridge. There is Belas Knap — an ancient barrow and the perfect place to sit and watch the sky.

We took many photos. I completely failed to capture some small mushrooms in the crook of a tree. This design is an attempt to recreate them from memory. The only bit that works for me is the leftmost mushroom. The block was one of the largest I’ve cut (at a measly 8″x6″), and I became impatient trying to model the tree. It came out looking like a hacked-up linocut. But the mushroom remains, and I’m happy with that.

And many thanks to Bareners who gave advice on how to get a denser result print from ply. This one used my nipping press and a sandwich of heavy MDF board plus a little soft backing cardboard to even things out. Getting there…

Cutting shina was quite a change after playing ‘hunt the knife mark’ with lino. I could see (more or less) how the design was coming along. To make life a little harder I decided to cut all the outlines with a knife rather than gouges. This lasted until the shaded part of the abdomen when I caved in and used a small v-gouge to finish off.

So far, so good. Things went to pieces a little come the printing. I used some fairly heavy, toothed drawing paper for proofing, plus some Lawrence ‘GB’ oil-based washable ink, burnishing using a spoon on some prints and a Speedball baren on others. Humbug. The ink had a couple of hard bits which you can see on the first proof. That wasn’t what bothered me, however. The grain showed everywhere and I couldn’t seem to get any solid blacks even using the spoon.

Time to ask the astounding Baren Forum people for advice… They recommended all sorts of things including burnishing out from the centre, trying thinner Japanese paper, dampening the paper, and so on. The local art store and stationers were out of blotting paper so I’m stuck with dry paper prints until the delivery gets here. Japanese paper I had.

This evening I tried a few more proofs on the Japanese paper (no idea what type — the label fell off!) and had a little more luck. Most of the black solids were just that, except the lousy border! I don’t know. It’s probably my slapdash inking and burnishing, but it’s worse than ever — every little tool-mark caught the ink and printed fuzzily, and the border was patchy as hell.

I’d like to put this through a cylinder press (will shina take the strain?) just to see what might be possible. That’ll have to wait for another day. In the meantime I’ll try another block and start all over again. While keeping on eye on course listings or trying to find some one-on-one coaching from a real printmaker!

Until next time…

I had little idea what to expect. From the outside the whole place seemed rather aggressive: warplanes, tanks and whatnot. Turned out it was the wrong place. The gallery was further along the street.

The gallery’s exhibits break down into domestic and some foreign pieces, and again by era. Some periods are very heavily influenced by western European styles, and contain delights regardless. The Booty by Theodoros Rallis centres on a woman who scorns a pretty horrible fate. Nikiphoros Lytras’s gentle paintings Awaiting and The Kiss are wonderful. Many, much sterner, images remind you that modern Greece was forged in a long and gruelling war of independence. And of course there’s El Greco (Doménicos Theotokópoulos). If you’re a devotee, you’ll find three of his works here.

Now let’s set the paintings aside. After all, you want to read about printmakers. In a mezzanine between the ground and basement levels lies a small room filled with prints. Chief among these (for me) were relief prints by Yiánnis Kefallinós, a master engraver, typographer and teacher. My three favourites were My Father (1920), The Big Tree (1925), and The Banana Plant (1939).

I recognised Kefallinós’s work from a marvellous book given to me several years ago by my wife’s cousin Yiorgios: Two Centuries of Modern Greek Engraving. (Δυο Αιώνες Νεοελληνικής Χαρακτικής, ed. Nίkos Grigorákis, 2004, Govostis, ISBN 960-270-976-6). I doubt this book will ever see an English translation, which is a great pity. It catalogues many artists who deserve a wider audience. Now there’s a fun project: an English site about Greek printmaking! While we’re at it, why not an international online printmaking museum? Sign me up…

If you ever find yourself down Athens way and want to see more, there’s also a printmaking museum in one of the northern suburbs: Εngraving Museum at Grigorakis Gallery, Yakinthon 4, Palaio Psihiko, Athens. Telephone: +00 33 1 210 674 0806. It’s open from 6–9 on weekday evenings (probably excluding Monday). We just couldn’t find the time to visit in January. Hopefully I’ll be able to post a small report this summer.

There are many more images of work by Greek printmakers on the Eikastikon site. If you know any decent resources in English or Greek, please let me know. My Greek isn’t up to much but I’ll try and give a sense of what each site is about!

The urgent need was to make marks on a block so I put an edge on my gouges, made a quick sketch and began to cut.

OK, the result isn’t up to much. My tool skills don’t extend to cutting fine detail in small blocks, and other mistakes crept in — the shadows are misplaced, the ivy resembles a noose — but at least it’s yer actual print on paper.

My oil-based ink had nearly frozen in the garage, but the cheap water-based stuff that rolls like thin black ketchup still took orders. Note to self: keep ink indoors over winter.

I learned another lesson: office paper is lousy for proofing. For this one I tore up some large sheets of good sketching paper and noticed the difference straight away.

After some cross words with my wonky nipping press, I downgraded to a wooden spoon and fingernails. The combination of hand burnishing and decent paper seems to agree with me. I can’t wait to try again with a larger, simpler piece.