Thursday, April 27, 2006

Waterbased Intaglio Inks

Linda Goodman asked me to assist her in her waterbased monotype class last weekend. I was excited to try out these new inks and compare them to the oil based inks. The oil based inks I used in her oil based class were the Handschy litho-inks . I've had a lot of experience with Handschy since these are the inks that Prof. J prefers to work with. My grad professors frowned on me using these inks, but I still used them anyways. It was good because nobody was advanced enough at CCA to use the color litho inks so I had them all to myself. Anyways, for the waterbased workshop with Linda Goodman, we used Akua-intaglio which is a new brand of Akua that was supposed to be good. At first I couldn't tell much differnce to the oil based inks when I was rolling it out, but when I printed, I could tell right away. The black to me looked like a bad marker running out of ink. Eventhough my black looked richer than the others, it was ugly. Also, the printgods god mad at me because I had a slight ten minute creative block. Usually, I'm able to just dive right in, but the Gods would not allow it. Solvent and oil based inks create the most wonderful washes, but this stuff just smudged. Linda took me into the back and showed me an experiment that she did on Aqua-line
faust inks. The water when mixed with the black created a texture exactly like tusche , so hopefully she will like these inks and use them in Greece while I'm there. The clean up was extremely messy. It took me twice as long to clean these inks off of rollers eventhough it is a safer process. My hands got very messy from using it too...it is just too messy. Out of a scale of five I would give them a four. I have heard that other inks brands are a lot worse.

I don't like these prints, but I'm going to share them with you anyways. Just wasn't feelin' it that day.

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Subtractive method.

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Additive onto ghost.

4 comments:

mark phelan said...

i have found that you need to 'burn' a few prints before the plate gets charged up enough for the black to come out looking black. i primarily use them for lino cut though, which is a little less finicky.

and clean up is a snap with a spray bottle filled with water and a few drops of liquid dish soap.

i still love the daniel smith oil though...

Anonymous said...

hello -if you like oil based inks but want to wash up without solvents you may like to try out Caligo 'Safe Wash Etching inks' - these are oil based inks ( yes - really!!) but you can wash up with just soap and water. I'm a bit biased ( because I make them !! )but I would be really interested to hear what you think.

All the best

Angela

Anonymous said...

Hey MF

Yeah, I am still hooked on the Handshy , because thats what Lasansky taught me to use. Your right though - they are tough to use.

I am interested in the alternatives that I am reading about on your blog. I am going to make my shop "greener".

Your blog is acting weird..... slap it around.

JE

M said...

General Gow-yes I've noticed that if you leave the ink sit for a bit it does come out better.

Caligo Inks-Wow!!!

Prof. J-the printshop isn't green enough after I've been in it? ;)