After some hit and missing printing onto the t-shirts I did
some more research and ended up getting myself some Essdee fabric inks along
with a Essdee fabric roller. What a difference that made, the ink is quite
different from the speedball ink I was using and the roller worked some much
better.
To do some more testing and experiments I stopped into the
local Hospice Shop and picked up 4 second hand t-shirts and 1 ladies top.
T-Shirt time again. I’m still struggling with getting consistent prints from using the Speedball Fabric inks. I watched a few videos and picked up a few tips, but still getting to light patches coming thought. A lot more experimenting required I think.
2025 and the start of a new year. Been relaxing and
not doing alot, other than the usual family catch ups. I have just finished the
first carve of a new lino print, another large print at 500mm x800mm. I’ve cut
out the sun and a large part of the lake so they will stay nice an white (or
paper colour). I may even try airbrushing in some colour post printing. I used
a super-sized sharpie pen to blacken the print as I carved.
I’ll do a test print in the next few days, but expect I’ll
need to tidy up a few parts and make the call on whether I add in some more detail
or not.
Tonight’s effort was to finish off my Cad Bane carving and
do a first print. Needs a bit of tidying up but pleased with the results. Defiantly need to try out some blue tomorrow after I complete the clean-up.
Did up a small carving today of Star Wars Clone Captain Rex’s Helmet. Came out well, although I haven’t got the hang of printing on fabric yet. This is on a cheap T-shirt using Speed Ball Fabric ink, which I’ve only used a couple of times. It’s very different from my normal printing inks, so I’ll most likely be killing a few more t-shirts in the near future. Need to get some Blue ink to do a two tone version.
Star Wars Captain Rex T-Shirt Print
Now working on Cad Bane print converted from a nice drawing I found online.
Today I took my first go at printing my largest ever Lino carving. The Feather is 1150mm in length by 600mm which was a bit of beast to handle in printing. My printing bed is 600mm x 1200mm, so was basically as big as I can print. Then using a paper sheet cut from a roll of Fabriano Accademia which is 1.5m long, the physical sizes was a bit of a challenge, so I did a dry run first to get the order and process on how to handle the paper. Using the Cranfield inks are just so nice, mixed with extender and wax dryer they don’t dry to fast and with the size of the print and multi colors and mixes I was using, I didn’t need to rush. So overall I’m pretty pleased with the outcome of colors, even with the learning curve of printing such a large print, there is always more things to learn. I’ll need to cut away a few more sections that were picking up a bit too much background chatter and work of my blending of colors.
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| Ink bench preped and ready to go. |
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| Feather (600mm x 1200mm) |
Went back and cleaned up my Waterfall Landscape carving and printed off a few more using the Cranfield inks which I am really loving now that I’ve got it matched to some good paper. Mixed up some of my own colours with some wax drier and extender and getting some really nice prints now.
Forgot to post about my last Shina board print which I finished the first
print run just before starting on the feather project. First Print came out ok,
I was expecting the chatter in the background and wasn’t shaw how it would turn
out…. Don’t quite like it that much, so going to go back and carve it out more
and reduce it, not remove it all.
Still on the fence if I like Shina board more than lino
Been
busy planning and starting on my largest linocut print to date, its 1200mm x
500mm. Took a few weeks of trying out different papers that came in large rolls before
taking the plunge and buying a roll. Ended up going with Fabriano Accademia
Drawing paper that comes in a 1.5m x 10m roll, for just over $100, so that
should keep me going for a while. All the
time testing small sheets of paper I’ve been slowly working on the feather
carving.
Picked up a really large permanent marker which makes checking my carving much easier. Been steady progress so far, so should have finished the carving in another week or so.
Managed
to get a really nasty sinus infection that flattened me for a week or so, only
just coming right now. I did get a bit of work done on my largest linocut to
date and pulled a print off it yesterday. Still has quite a bit of cleanup work
to do on it but it’s coming along nicely. It’s also my first landscape style
print.
My
father also made a really nice handle for my restored and converted mangle press.
Trying out the second Shina
board I got a months back, this time carving an image that I transferred onto
it with the Mod Podge. Being a large area and not as detailed compared to my
last one using the Mod Podge method, it really worked well. Found carving it
much easier this time around after sharping my tools, which always helps.
I got inspired from a picture
on my physio's wall of the muscles of the body, then found some illustrations
online in different poses to use as reference. Haven’t made any prints of
it yet, but pretty please how it’s come out so far.
Another small lino cut, 100mm x 100mm based off an image I created in AI and then transfered to the lino using the Mod podge method.
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| Valkyrie |
So my second attempt at using Mod
Podge Matte-Mat-Mate as an image transfer to the Lino worked out quite well.
The image transferred really well and leaving it for 24 hrs to fully dry before
using water and rubbing away the paper seemed to work the best. Just have to
take it slowly and not get it to wet gave the best results.
The one issue I did have is
with a small detailed 100mm x100mm square was the thin coating of Mod Podge
with the image in it, started lifting as I carved, making it rather difficult to
see the patterns and lines so I ended up guessing where I was going in some
cases. Once I carved out the main image I just removed the pealing mod podge
and free handed the rest. The end result came out rather well.
I also did a bunch of paper tests of different cheap papers I have at the moment and a couple of specific way more expensive printing papers on my Mangle press. I then tested some of my home made paper and quickly found I have to prime my paper first as the surface becomes to sticky and parts tend to lift as you remove the paper from the printing block. All a fun learning curve
Also been doing more AI
generated art and tried out a transfer method to a bit of lino using Mod
Podge Matte which I'd seen done in a YouTube video. Took a couple of goes to
get the method right. The real test will be how the Mod Podge changes the
carving of the Lino.
After a lot of elbow grease, electricity, washing crystals and a good drop or two of my blood the old washing mangle is restored. The metal parts anyway, still got the wooden guide boards front and back to make up. Pretty pleased with the outcome, so really really hoping she will work well for printing my lino-cuts and etchings.
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| Beforehand |
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| Restored |
With a very sore thumb after trying to grind it off the other day I'm on a slow and easy for the next while. So did a bit more drawing on my first A3 sized lino cut of a New Zealand Falcon.
My latest lino-cut of a dragon based off a plant image. Used a new
ink I picked up today from Cranfield, which I had seen at the Printopia exhibition.
First print using it I was impressed, I was expecting good results since the
ink isn’t cheap.
Finally
got to try out carving on a shine board for the first time. Quite a bit
different from Lino and yet still different from my other wood cut prints that
I've done on various particle board wood panels. It’s nothing flash, it was
more of a trial with different tools and cuts to get a feel for what would and wouldn’t
work. Defiantly need good sharp tools. Carving was much easier that the particle
boards I’ve tried. Can’t wait to see how they go thought the mangle press once
I finish restoring and convert it.
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| Cara |
Got the mangle parts
mostly done, all bar the legs paint striped and cleaned and now undercoated
with CRC rust converter ready for a test assemble before I apply a epoxy paint
coat. Still got some sanding of the rollers to complete, but they are getting
close to finishing.
Very happy with the outcome so
far, really looking forward to getting the legs finished and it put back
together.
So today I kicked off some more electrolysis cleaning on some larger parts of the Mangle press, using a large fish bin. I'm still blown away on how easy this is and how effective it is for cleaning paint and rush off metal. You can see on the long bar in the photo that only half fit into the bin the difference the cleaning makes. Only took about 1 minute of scrubbing with the wire brush to take off the residue paint and rust.
After some hit and missing printing onto the t-shirts I did some more research and ended up getting myself some Essdee fabric inks along w...
