With the holiday season comes the time for sending out handmade cards. For the last few years, I’ve been using methods that didn’t rely on a press, such as cyanotypes or block printing. Now that I’ve got my own miniature intaglio press, courtesy of the Open Press Project Project, I’m sending my first intaglio-printed card since 2016.
As longtime readers of this blog know, my cards take inspiration from local scenery rather than overt holiday-related iconography, and this year was no exception. Last Christmas Brandon gave me a birdfeeder after seeing how much enjoyment I got out of watching the birds at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden (seriously he’s the best), and I spent last winter watching different birds flock to our yard for food. Since we’re moving into another winter, I decided to pay homage to both Brandon’s gift and the season by highlighting one of our most frequent (and vocal) feathered visitors: the Carolina wren.
I started by going through my sketchbook and picking a drawing that would translate well into print form. I then worked up new sketches using exclusively pen and ink, anticipating the printed appearance of the intaglio image. In keeping with my ongoing commitment to reduce my reliance on outlining contours, I started with light pencil lines that I erased once I had enough pen hatch marks to place to render the image legible.
Once I had a design I liked, I redrew it onto tracing paper and flipped it over, as the plate image is always reversed. I then lay a piece of transparent Plexi over it, taped it down so it wouldn’t move, and “traced” the image onto the plate using my etching needle. After I had the basic image, I continued adding lines, gradually building up the bird.
Next it was time to print. I always try to use a different printing method each year to keep myself challenged. This year I decided to try chine-collé. For this technique, you print your image onto two sheets of paper at the same time. While you use regular printing paper as your base, the actual image gets printed onto extremely thin paper (think tissue consistency). Since you coat the back of the tissue paper with an adhesive before you print, it gets glued onto the thicker paper as you print, with the pressure of the press helping the tissue adhere. The benefit of this method is that you get to add color to your print, while the thin texture of the paper often proves especially adept at picking up details.
I’ve tried this method before with mixed results, but I decided to try again making a few modifications. Whereas in the past I always tried to cut the tissue paper into precise shapes that were prone to getting wrinkled or bunched up, this time I kept things simple by cutting the tissue paper into simple rectangles. For color I originally wanted gold or silver, but the craft store was out of both, so I opted for a muted bronze. I still think the gold would have looked nice, but the bronze is more in keeping with the actual plumage of a Carolina wren, so it works. After careful setup, it was time it print…
…and it worked! Well, sort of. The image came out fine and the tissue paper didn’t bunch up or get stuck to the plate, which is a huge improvement over my previous efforts. Unfortunately, I didn’t use enough adhesive to get the tissue to stick to the paper underneath it, so I had to spend an afternoon gluing them down after they had dried. Still, the image printed and was legible, which is more than what I could produce before, so I’ll take it.
Here’s the finished print:
In retrospect, these prints are a little messier than I would have liked, particularly around the edges, but I’m also a bit out of practice with my intaglio printing, given that I went about three years without access to a press. As I keep printing regularly I’ll get better at it again. But overall, I’m happy with it.
Good tidings, everyone.