Craft Night

Last Friday I met up with my crafting group and we learned about Intaglio print making. Our lovely hostess explained some of the history of the process and then helped us all step by step. At first I wasn't going to do my own print because I didn't feel prepared since I had no ideas of my own of what image to create. However, K had provided me with several images to work with. I, of course, had to choose a print of Toby.

We all started out with our images and then scratched the image out onto a plastic sheet. I had taped the image of Toby on the backside of my plastic sheet so that I could look directly at the image and sketch out the outline of the image. The scratches/carvings provided the necessary recess for the ink to go into and take hold into the plastic. The plastic sheet was covered in whatever color ink of our choosing and made sure that the image was completely inked over. Taking a cheesecloth type of material we made a small puffy mushroom out of the material and then gently wiped away however much ink we wanted off the plastic sheet. The ink would stay in the recesses of the carving, though. I chose to keep some of the ink on the sheet to create a background with more texture. I prefer having the filler in the background instead of having such a clean slate with my image smack in the middle. I have no idea why or how so many scratches got onto my plastic sheet but you can definitely see them all over my image. I think it adds more to the image though so it was a happy surprise.

Then we took a piece of newsprint to further clean the sheet especially around the edges of the plastic where little gobs of ink clung on for dear life.

We picked out whatever paper we wanted to use from an assortment of different stock and let it sit in a tray of water. The paper was then dried enough with a towel so that it wasn't sopping wet. By the time the paper went through the press it was pretty damp but not dripping. Our hostes, M, worked the Intaglio press for us and sent my image through and as you can see my print came out pretty well. I'm really glad that I had participated instead of just sitting around gobbling up all the great snacks. Thanks M for a great craft night!