No tags yet.
Today was a really productive day, and a big day of learning. Eloise had organised our images to be transferred to a plate for printing on the Big Fag Press. Diego took us through, step by step, how to print on the press. It is a complicated process, which commences with cleaning the machine. This involves pulling out all the top rollers so you can clean the ones below, the placing the top rollers back and cleaning those. The cleaning process takes around an hour, but it was a bit slower today as Eloise and I were doing it for the first time.
Next we dampen down the rollers, wet the plate (which always has to be wet (a fine mist over the plate is good). The process works with ink repelling water - so where the image on the plate is the ink sinks in, and resists water in that spot. It is such an amazing process. We then ink the rollers and run several test prints to get the correct consistency with the ink on the prints. Next up is the best part - printing our work on good quality paper - such a rewarding result.
After doing about 50 prints, it was time to clean up. This took another hour or so. It seems to be a lot of work to get the machine ready and then clean up, with only a small amount of time actually printing. The whole process too us a full day. But I must stress that seeing your own prints come to fruition from start to finish is just fantastic and well worth all the work.
Whilst we were printing, we had a visit from some of the people at Megalo Prints in Canberra. It was great to meet with them all, and perfect timing for them as they could see the Big Fag Press in action. We chatted about how our organisation worked, and how their organisation worked. It was a real exchange of ideas and processes which I think was helpful to both of us.
We chatted about what each of the Megalo people did at their studio and how they run their workshops. They mentioned they have a lithography workshop coming up, and I mentioned that I would be interested in that. I have since booked into that weekend workshop, and they did say there is a cottage on site which if I get in touch with them, I could stay for very reasonable rates. All sounds good to me.
What was really gratifying about today was learning a new skill in how to operate the Big Fag Press and overseeing the whole process of printing - from the initial drawing of sketches to scanning to getting a plate made and to printing. There is something so special in being part of this. Also working with Eloise was great - it is so beneficial to both of us to do collaborative work, something I haven't really done before. Making new contacts with other printmakers was fantastic and I hope to develop an ongoing relationship with Megalo Print Studio. Not only from a professional point of view, but it is so wonderful to be able to chat with like minded people who share similar passions.